Infinite Lives

[lukep]

I think that an option to have infinite lives would be used and enjoyed by many people. It would change the feel of the game drastically in that game mode, making it more like an action RPG (eg. Diablo, Torchlight etc...) and less like a Roguelike (eg. Angband, Nethack etc...) The use of infinite lives would allow for easier access to the later content of the game at the cost of the player (probably) being less emotionally invested in their character and less careful/thoughtful due to there being no risk to their investment of time to drive the player.

[Tom]

I think that an option to have infinite lives would be used and enjoyed by many people. It would change the feel of the game drastically in that game mode, making it more like an action RPG (eg. Diablo, Torchlight etc...) and less like a Roguelike (eg. Angband, Nethack etc...) The use of infinite lives would allow for easier access to the later content of the game at the cost of the player (probably) being less emotionally invested in their character and less careful/thoughtful due to there being no risk to their investment of time to drive the player.

Perhaps used, but enjoyed?

I always play 'roguelike'. If I die, I die.
This makes the game MUCH more enjoyable IMO than if one could be resurected.
I always played DiabloII in hardcore mode and even if it sux to die, it makes the experience so much better. Simply, I think one playes better if death is permanent.
The day I beat Angband with no backup save files was awesome, even if I screamed of anger two years before when The Tarrasque killed me just a few floors before Morgoth.

This may sound a bit hypocratic as I am asking spoiler questions which some hard core players might think as boring as multiple lives.

Beeing spoiled, with one life, is my cup of tea.
If someone could write a Guidebook ala ADOM which has a book with almost everything there is in the game, I think it would be good for the game (and maybe this group).
ToME is very difficult to get a grip on for a beginner.
At least a *sticky* beginners guide would be awesome.
Things like

a) How do I know which weapon is best? For ex is a blue dwarven dagger (10-15, 7) better than a purple steel dagger of ruin (5-10, 9)?
b) Where should I go after Trollmire, Old Forest, Sandworm and Daikara?
c) What towns are worhtwile to visit in the beginning?
d) Are there any 'hidden' side quests that one could/should do early?
e) The anti magic Arena. Is this good for a fighter? How, when and why? Pros and cons.

I prefer to get some info and then head right into the heat with one life.
For example:
I was told the boss in a cave is a bit dangerous.
I was prepared for dirty tricks, but not for this trick in particular.
So I died.
Carefully registrating what to do next time I go there.
A perfect set up for this kind of game.

Tom

[Grey]

A game with infinite lives will get played once. A game that punishes players and teaches them to learn and evolve their playstyles will keep them hooked for years.

[Final Master]

Beeing spoiled, with one life, is my cup of tea.
If someone could write a Guidebook ala ADOM which has a book with almost everything there is in the game, I think it would be good for the game (and maybe this group).
ToME is very difficult to get a grip on for a beginner.
At least a *sticky* beginners guide would be awesome.
Things like

a) How do I know which weapon is best? For ex is a blue dwarven dagger (10-15, 7) better than a purple steel dagger of ruin (5-10, 9)?
b) Where should I go after Trollmire, Old Forest, Sandworm and Daikara?
c) What towns are worhtwile to visit in the beginning?
d) Are there any 'hidden' side quests that one could/should do early?
e) The anti magic Arena. Is this good for a fighter? How, when and why? Pros and cons.
Tom

I am actually in the midst of doing a complete guide for T4 and have been working on it on and off for ~four months. It will come as several separate guides however, for ease of reading.

A Zones guide
- Dangerous NPCs
- Side Quest Zones
- Things of Interest
- General information about level and npc disbursement if any special is defined
- Guardian

An Equipment guide
- How weapons work
- How the armor system works
- How attacking works
- Summary of egos and what to look for
- Acceptable kit for various cases at level break points [5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45, 50]
- Acceptable/Recommended kit for various special zones
- What it all means

A Talents guide
- Lukep is doing most all the work there, and is mostly up already on the wiki

A Tips and Tactics guide
- A general players guide to controls, options, settings
- Basic gameplay strategies
- In depth strategies for specific case fights [Jewler Quest] and other such situations
- Character build guides - these will be in a similar fashion to those in my profile blog and up on the wiki on te4.org
- Suggestions on zone order

As you can see, there is a LOT to cover before we have any real documentation. As this is also such a vast project, and the amount of desired depth for each individual segment will vary, this is really more of a project for a group, rather than one or two people. If anyone has any desire to help speed this up to be released [either in part or in whole] once a v1 or close to it; is released, I would greatly appreciate it. As I had stated, I've been working on this for several months, and am maybe only achieved a 'good start'.

Anyone that is interested in helping, please, PM me and let me know what you would like to help with. :) Thank you!

FM

[tiger_eye]

I agree with Tom and Grey. Years ago I saved-scummed (via copying) while playing Moria/Angband (I was young and foolish). I learned then that constantly cheating death makes the game much less fun. Now, whenever my character dies, I let them die with pride! (although there should probably be different death messages based on the rank of the killer)

lukep and others, if you want infinite lives, there's a very easy way to do that: enable cheating. If you are cheating, there is an option in the death menu is "resurrect by cheating" that you can use as many times as you like. If you cheat, however, your character shouldn't appear in the online characters vault.

[Tom]

I am actually in the midst of doing a complete guide for T4 and have been working on it on and off for ~four months. It will come as several separate guides however, for ease of reading.

A Zones guide
- Dangerous NPCs
- Side Quest Zones
- Things of Interest
- General information about level and npc disbursement if any special is defined
- Guardian

An Equipment guide
- How weapons work
- How the armor system works
- How attacking works
- Summary of egos and what to look for
- Acceptable kit for various cases at level break points [5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45, 50]
- Acceptable/Recommended kit for various special zones
- What it all means

A Talents guide
- Lukep is doing most all the work there, and is mostly up already on the wiki

A Tips and Tactics guide
- A general players guide to controls, options, settings
- Basic gameplay strategies
- In depth strategies for specific case fights [Jewler Quest] and other such situations
- Character build guides - these will be in a similar fashion to those in my profile blog and up on the wiki on te4.org
- Suggestions on zone order

As you can see, there is a LOT to cover before we have any real documentation. As this is also such a vast project, and the amount of desired depth for each individual segment will vary, this is really more of a project for a group, rather than one or two people. If anyone has any desire to help speed this up to be released [either in part or in whole] once a v1 or close to it; is released, I would greatly appreciate it. As I had stated, I've been working on this for several months, and am maybe only achieved a 'good start'.

Anyone that is interested in helping, please, PM me and let me know what you would like to help with. Thank you!

FM

WOW!!
This sounds just super.
My best advice I think is to browse the ADOM guidebook that Andy Williams did for ADOM.
Maybe use the same kind of set up.

http://www.adomgb.info/adomgb-toc.html

This book is very helpful and it covers most of that game.
I was playing a lot during the months and years that the book was created.
It was a lot of fun, as ADOM is not open source code so the rgb group for ADOM was very active.

I really wish you luck with the guide book!!

Tom

[Hedrachi]

Must...resist...desire...to play ADOM again... darn you, Tom. Used that gb A LOT back when I played ADOM.

[Canderel]

Actually, I think we should give the discovery mode infinite lives.

[flame]
This is the type of topic that the "hardcore" roguelike player always will reply on (ie. generate lots of noise), but doesn't bring a new argument to the table. So for you its fun. [/flame] [argument]For me, I hate to invest 8 hours, never see the end of the game, cause I get killed for the 6th time by an orc ambush.[/argument]

[background]
Personally I enjoyed Diablo, dying was almost part of the game, but they gave you a continuation of your days spent playing by introducing Nightmare and Hell difficulties. Plotwise you've experienced the whole game by lvl 30-40. But item and skill (character development) there is still loads to do till lvl 60-70, and then it gets really tedious after that.

Now for me, that is good, I can "hang up the game", or "replay with a different class" after completing the plot once. Or I can develop another one further if I feel like it.
[/background]

[shooth]

I strongly agree that this would be a useful addition to the game, and I like the idea of putting it in Discovery mode.

All the brass-ball, 'Its not a REAL game unless when you die when you fat-finger the wrong key' people know that any sort of addition like this won't affect them at all, because only pasty-faced girl-scout wannabes play anything but insane (or roguelike).

Those people just want to restrict how others enjoy the game, and thats dumb.

Myself, I like to play insane or roguelike mode AND cheat death. AND I kill the process. Thats right, I'm a cheater, and my player logs say so. When I get bored, or decide that a build isn't working, or just want to see whats in the new beta, I die or abandon that character. Been playing this tome since about b16, and played various other versions of rogue/angband/moria/adom/tome/nethack/kangband/sangband for years....

So there, naysayers.

[tiger_eye]

It has been proposed before that "Discovery" mode could include unlimited full respec and unlimited lives. The catch is that the game can only progress so far (I would stop progress at killing the master--don't include the orc ambush!) and that the player doesn't receive unlocks. This allows "discovering" players to get a feel for the game, how it works, how to play, and when to do what. Being a game, though, and being subject to gaming psychology, easily allowing full exploration of the game makes the game less fun. This isn't a matter of being a purist or not--the goal is to make a fun game. If a player truly wishes to cheat to see the entire game, then there are clear instructions on the wiki on how to do so. If you would like to make this even easier, then perhaps another playing level could be introduced: "Cheater mode" (unlimited lives, unlimited respec, entire game accessible). If you want to "cheat", then don't hide from it.

To join in the admissions of shooth, yes, I have killed the ToME process before too. With my serious characters, I only do this when I encounter a debilitating bug (or, on rare occasion, when the game pisses me off--if I do this, though, I always go kill my character someplace else). For non-serious characters, I have a developers mindset and am thinking/looking for how to make a better game, but I generally don't play these characters for very long.

[lukep]

Actually, I think we should give the discovery mode infinite lives.

I wish I had though of framing this idea as "Discovery Mode Changes", instead of "Infinite Lives", it would have steered the discussion in a better direction. Also, then change Discovery mode to normal damage/healing etc. You're also right that there isn't much new information being thrown around, here's some:

Onetime vs Diehard players: Different modes would appeal to different audiences, most likely a wider (but less dedicated) one for "new Discovery" mode. Also don't know how well this idea fits with the audience for Roguelikes, who are already fairly far to the hardcore side.

One of the dangers of doing this is bringing in transient players in could alienate the core.

[shwqa]

I'm for discovery mode to have infinite lives and possibly removing the extra healing and reduced enemy life. Tome4 is still not an easy game even with those lives. Some people just want to play the game till the end. I dislike it when I game make me replay it all the way through because I did a mistake in the middle of the game. If you don't want play with infinite lives then play the rogue-like setting. People are already save scumming or cheating, why not just give people what they want? Here is a link saying my argument better than I could Status and Signals: Why Hardcore Gamers Are Afraid Of Easy Mode and Test Skills, Not Patience: Challenge, Punishment, and Learning

[tiger_eye]

EDIT: Finally added promised link below
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26713

I'm for discovery mode to have infinite lives

No no no no NOOOOO!! This subject has come up before, and the posts in this topic have been relatively mild and at times helpful compared to the others (hello!! The appeal and interest in better, more useful documentation?! Contact Finalmaster if you want to help). Even so, I feel like I just need to let loose and lay down the proverbial foot.

For starters, I don't understand the initial argument.

(A) Some players want infinite lives when they play
(B) Um, this is already supported via cheating
(A) But, uh, should you really force players to cheat?
(B) ???

The following principal was probably in one of the gorram articles linked to above: games without challenges or meaningful consequences don't remain fun for long. (This isn't quite true for all types of games, but that's the nature of games: there is no Mendeleevian set of principles that you can apply to all games)

Where was I? Ah yes. Despite my apparent puritanical enflameness, I am not a "hardcore roguelike player". Heck, I haven't even been much of a video game player since the '90s. My primary roguelike experience was playing a bit of moria and angband back in the mid-90s. A little while ago, I was curious what roguelikes were out there now-a-days, and I played a bit of ToME 2 ('cause it's similar to angband) before stumbling upon the jewel-in-development ToME 4. Primarily, though, I prefer to play board games socially. Good boardgames. Well designed boardgames. Fun boardgames. This is why I am writing in this forum: I want ToME 4 to be fun. It is already fun, but I want it to be more fun. And... I want it to be more fun for more people.

Whenever the topic of "unlimited lives" comes up and reaches some sort of conclusion, the "conclusion" is often a reluctant acknowledgement that the roguelike genre simply has a difficult time accommodating some types of players and playing preferences. Obviously, since this and similar topics come up from time to time, some players must feel a legitimate frustration or see a legitimate unfairness to the game. These players should not be dismissed so cavalierly.

If an adult plays for half an hour a day for two weeks straight, then dies their last death due to their child jumping on the keyboard, well, then, I'd say that really sucks. Even if they died their final death due to their own mistakes, if this isn't how they wanted to play (and, hence, stop playing with that character), then I'd say this is unfair to them. Is this the general sentiment of the "kinder options for playing" supporters around here? If so, then I think I understand.

I am not against legitimate and reasonable options for easier playing. I just don't think infinite lives as currently suggested is reasonable... because it's not fun. (please don't harp on this asserted opinion--and its lack of justification--overly much; I am sure playing through the game while effectively invincible would still be interesting)

Normally I would list what I consider reasonable options at this point in the post. Not this time. Please read previous posts and previous forum topics if you want a rehash of old ideas. If you want to read about a new idea, then go to this forum topic:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=26713

p.s. Don't drink and post. You may regret it in perpetuity.

[Grey]

I'd maybe suggest letting Discovery mode give infinite lives to those who donate ;)

[Hedrachi]

I'd maybe suggest letting Discovery mode give infinite lives to those who donate

That'd be A Truly Fascinating Phenomenon.