The Drunken Lizard Pub

If users want to cheat, LET THEM!

It's not as much cheating as it is the way the game was designed. Being the competitive type, I like to find advantages but rerolling also loses my interest in wanting to play the game. It's just not an easy perspective to say, "just don't reroll" or "reroll less". Again, I am looking to find a more conservative DESIGNER solution to rerolling dice, that is all. A design solution more realistic to simulating playing a D&D game while still being fun (not rerolling endlessly). Perhaps part of the problem/solution is the fact without rerolling its (A) hard to get chests of treasure and (B) even when you find a chest there is a good percentage you won't get anything good combined with (C) there are very monsters to fight to get A+B.

For lack of a difficulty level setting, why not allow players who have a harder time to "cheat" a bit by this save-reload method. Does it somehow effect YOUR gameplay if a novice player opts to make his/her game easier! Sorta reminds me of hiking the Appalachian Trail some years back: the "Purists" insisted that every hiker must follow every blaze and berated anyone who chose an alternate route. As if it was a competition of some sort! As if there were "rules." On my second through-hike, I decided to see something different sometimes: found alternate routes, frequented side-trails, visited small towns nearby, bushwacked to a few trailess pristine high mountain tarns. You wouldn't believe the crap I got from the Purist faction.
I see this issue of save-reload as just another case of "I'm eons better than all of you cheaters" and I despise it. Hike your own hike, or in this case, play your own game. Let the 8-year-old, just getting the hang of gaming, play it easier. Or how 'bout Gramma, who has barely learned how to use the internet, and only yesterday discovered games. Give 'em a chance.
If this were an online multi=player game, then you would have a very good reason to complain. It's not. It affects you not at all. Get over it.

For lack of a difficulty level setting

Well, that is exactly what I would love to see happen.

I'm eons better than all of you cheaters

The sad part is here I am a designer by day, so it just pains me to see poor design solutions. Rerolling is unfortunately needed in this game, it just takes away from the spirit of enjoying the game because I can't go "cool, I got a super sword". It's more like, hmm.. that equipment looks good, but maybe I can get something better.

You can't just simply say, well then don't reroll, because that isn't the WAY THE GAME WAS DESIGNED!

I know I've chimed in on this before, someplace, because I can remember doing so, but I suppose the opinion calls for repeating.

Mongolian is absolutely right, here. The re-rolling option is a game-breaker. If you want an option for casual players that makes the game easier: provide an EASY setting. Problem solved.

This should apply to the opening screen, as well, where you get to re-roll all your statistics. I've probably said this before, as well: Statistics should be uniform before you apply the extra numbers. To be able to re-roll until you get stats that satisfy you reduces the significance of player strategy.

Recluse:
While I agree with your attitude in regard to the Appalachian Trail... your comparison doesn't follow. A game-breaking characteristic is not comparable to creative exploration, and hiking the Appalachian Trail is not a game, so it does not require rules.

Evnissyen wrote:I know I've chimed in on this before, someplace, because I can remember doing so, but I suppose the opinion calls for repeating.

Mongolian is absolutely right, here. The re-rolling option is a game-breaker. If you want an option for casual players that makes the game easier: provide an EASY setting. Problem solved.

This should apply to the opening screen, as well, where you get to re-roll all your statistics. I've probably said this before, as well: Statistics should be uniform before you apply the extra numbers. To be able to re-roll until you get stats that satisfy you reduces the significance of player strategy.

Recluse:
While I agree with your attitude in regard to the Appalachian Trail... your comparison doesn't follow. A game-breaking characteristic is not comparable to creative exploration, and hiking the Appalachian Trail is not a game, so it does not require rules.

If you want uniform starting statistics, there are games that provide such. Eschalon isn't one, and I'm among those who likes it this way. As for the re-roll making the game broken, you're giving your opinion, which is why Recluse's analogy to hiking the Appalachian Trail and being told he's doing it wrong is exactly on point. Your opinion is that Eschalon would be a better game if you were not allowed to reroll, and BW said they would be providing optional settings in Book II so you could do just that. My choosing not to limit my ability to reroll doesn't break your game any more than Recluse's choice to hike side trails damages the hike of the "purists".

However, your insistence that the rolling be taken out of the game for everybody would break MY enjoyment.

I will chime in once again. No one is making anyone save and reroll. Saving and rerolling is a choice! In your opinion it is a game breaker for you. It is not a game breaker for myself and many others on this forum. If BW wants to put in a setting that allows you to disable save and reroll that is fine. This game is not a multi-player! How I play the game has no affect on how you play it.

Mongolian wrote:Rerolling is unfortunately needed in this game, it just takes away from the spirit of enjoying the game because I can't go "cool, I got a super sword". It's more like, hmm.. that equipment looks good, but maybe I can get something better.

Simply do not reroll. The problem is you give in to the temptation to save and reroll! Rerolling is not needed in this game. You can make it through this game without having to reroll. Check the Challenge thread. Gamers have made it through this game in many different fashions and appear to have a good time doing it.

Bad game design choices? Again your opinion. The question is are you designing the game for self or your audience. BW designed the game to mimic the old school CRPG. That was his intent and goal. If the design you pick achieves the goal and intent it is not bad.

Mongolian wrote:You can't just simply say, well then don't reroll, because that isn't the WAY THE GAME WAS DESIGNED!

Wrong! Yes you can say do not reroll! The game is an old style CRPG. It does not adhere to the lastest D & D rule changes. It harkens back to the original rule set. The rule set that allowed you to roll up your attributes.

BW has always stated that he was making an old style CRPG like MIght & Magic, or Gold box games. This was the intent. Before you criticize the design, did it fulfill its intent? Did it meet the expectations of its intended audience? Eschalon Book I scores on both of those issues.

So... by your reasoning, BW could make cheating easily and fully accessible and call cheating a "game option"... and although it is clearly obvious that this "option" would ruin the game, you would argue: "Hey, it's optional! If you're such a purist then don't use that option!"

The fact is that re-rolling is not only an inherent feature of the game but really pretty much necessary if you wish to have a good, well-equipped character. Since the game seems to assume that you're going to re-roll: re-rolling becomes necessary.

Of course, if BW truly is planning to put in check-boxes on the opening screen (or in the Player Options) that determines at which point the roll takes place... then I don't think any of us have anything to argue about.

But if not, and then I have to tell you: This feature as it is, being an immutable part of the game that nobody can ignore but must actually employ if one wants an effective character, not only ruins the game-dynamics but also wastes the players time since I have to keep re-rolling several times for each and every barrel, chest and bag that I encounter, to make sure I've gotten the best goods. All accounted for, this amounts to an awful lot of game-time lost in re-rolling. I feel forced to waste all this time re-rolling because 1. I want the best character possible (which should be obtained ideally by strategy), and 2. whenever I find an empty barrel or a chest containing 3 coins, I feel cheated... so I have to re-roll. Again, it seems to me that the game assumes I'm going to re-roll for the best treasure, and therefore these 3-coin-treasure rolls become annoyingly frequent.

So... Honestly, what's the point? I'm just going to re-roll, anyway. Where's the enjoyment? "Yay I rerolled to my satisfaction"? Is this the "intention" of the game that you were referring to?

Treasure is not truly treasure if you get to try again for something better, every single time. Like Mongolian said: For the most part, Treasure, in Eschalon, is simply no fun. It should be fun to be surprised with something interesting.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I got tired of the game. Too much time spent saving and reloading, and reloading, and reloading, and reloading.

And think about it: If "not re-rolling" is considered to be a "challenge": What does that say? I mean, how can you honestly declare that re-rolling is a mere "option" if it's considered to be a challenge not to re-roll?

Face it, it's a game design. Not an option.

Finally . . . before you begin talking about the "intended audience" and whether or not the game "met their expectations", you're going to have to do an awful lot of explaining about who that intended audience is and whom it includes and what that audience's expectations were. Does it include me, for example, as well as all the other people who frequent these boards and who've voted that re-rolling should be fixed? Or do you have another word for us?

Good luck with that explanation.

Evnissyen wrote:Since the game seems to assume that you're going to re-roll: re-rolling becomes necessary.

The game doesn't "assume" anything, and, though I admit ignorance on the issue, I don't think the game was designed with repeated rerolling in mind other than selecting base stats at the beginning of the game.

Evnissyen wrote:This feature as it is, being an immutable part of the game that nobody can ignore but must actually employ if one wants an effective character,

This is debatable, an "effective character" for one can be many things. Operating under what I assume you mean by this it's also quite possible to build an effective character otherwise, the one possible exception being rolling for your initial stats but even then initial stats aren't as restrictive as people make them out to be. Case in point I recently beat the game handsomely with only a max of 23 HP. Druidic Healer, nearly untouchable by the end. I beat it at level 18, but by lvl 13 I toe-to-toeing against Tauraxes comfortably(albeit at that point one at a time.) but I didn't cause I wanted to level up. In addition I did this with less than abusive rerolling. At worst I would reroll something like five times (in fact I took pretty much the third roll for stats in the beginning) which is much less than a guarunteed item from every or even half of the game's containers. So don't tell me that it MUST be employed. I readily admit that I didn't avoid it entirely, but what I did was low enough that it's obvious the game can be progressed and a decent character can be made WITHOUT abusing the system. It IS a choice man.

Evnissyen wrote:Treasure is not truly treasure if you get to try again for something better, every single time. Like Mongolian said: For the most part, Treasure, in Eschalon, is simply no fun. It should be fun to be surprised with something interesting.

I know it's a poor example but if this were true no one would buy lottery tickets. "You'll just have to buy another one..." So?

Evnissyen wrote:Face it, it's a game design. Not an option.

Bull. It's an exploitable mechanic in the game, but it IS an option cause ultimately the player is the one who chooses to do it. Regardless of outside forces. The game is NOT too hard that you are forced to do it. Simple as that.

Evnissyen wrote:The fact is that re-rolling is not only an inherent feature of the game but really pretty much necessary if you wish to have a good, well-equipped character. Since the game seems to assume that you're going to re-roll: re-rolling becomes necessary.

Bull! I rolled once for my character and beat the game with that character. I replayed the game as a pure mage and beat the game. I have played the game several times over without rerolling and beat the game. You do not have to reroll to get a well equipped character. In fact you develop a well equipped character though playing the game. Do not tell me you have to reroll. You may abuse the system if you so choose!

Evnissyen wrote:So... by your reasoning, BW could make cheating easily and fully accessible and call cheating a "game option"... and although it is clearly obvious that this "option" would ruin the game, you would argue: "Hey, it's optional! If you're such a purist then don't use that option!"

In fact yes he can! As designer and programmer of the game, he can choose to do whatever he wants!

Evnissyen wrote:Finally . . . before you begin talking about the "intended audience" and whether or not the game "met their expectations", you're going to have to do an awful lot of explaining about who that intended audience is and whom it includes and what that audience's expectations were. Does it include me, for example, as well as all the other people who frequent these boards and who've voted that re-rolling should be fixed? Or do you have another word for us?

Bw stated the intended audience was those people who like old school CRPGs in the vein of Might and Magic, the gold box games (SSI), and Bard's Tale among others. The system they used was old ruleset D & D, where you rolled up your stats using six sided dice. I was not assuming anything. I have kept tabs on this game from the time the concept was posted on the Blitz Research website! I have also read all the posts BW has made on this forum and on the Blitz website. I assume nothing more than what the designer has said!

But why should you care how I play the game! If the person wants to reroll to their hearts content, how does that affect you? This is not a multi player game. I have no problem resisting the tempation to reroll.

My suggestions

General: I think that in the options menu there should be a choice for strict play mode, where you cannot save anywhere (at a area change and/or specific locations/checkpoints), thus increasing the risk and making it more exciting. Maybe even an hardcore mode that deletes save file when you're dead.

Picklocks : in the first game you HAD to have lockpicks to unlock a door/chest. How about not needing them (if you're a rogue especialy) but reducing the chances of success. This would come in handy if you run out of LPs in the middle of a dungeon.

Traps : there should be a tool to help disabling them (at least enhancing the chances). Also the more you are skilled the least chance you should have of it blowing in your face (max 50%-down to 5%). Fun possible skills with traps:
-Avoid trap : allows you to step over a detected trap without triggering it. Usefull if you are getting followed by an enemy.
-Set trap : If you have a trap item, allows you to set various traps.
Heh, you could meet a hunter character that would sell you them and teach you these skills.

Loot: make treasure items! GOLD BARS, CROWNS, JEWELERY!

I think I like Drakon's suggestions.

Let me add that were Eschalon mine to redesign then I would do this:

1. Get rid of re-rolling on the stat screen. BW has been talking about having different character "types"... I think that this is a good idea if it means that Eschalon can dispense with the rolled stats. Maybe this dice-rolling thing is one of those nice little nostalgic qualities that BW and a lot of other people like, but I don't think it adds anything to the game. If we had several different types of people to choose from, each with their own predetermined stats, and then got to add in our numbers wherever we liked: this would be a great improvement, I think. In fact: Spiderweb does it this way, and I think it's a good system.

2. Do not roll for traps. I'll bring up Spiderweb again because I think Jeff Vogel has honed the craft down reasonably well. Each time you find a door or a chest (or trap) that requires some skill to open: there will be a certain level of skill that is required to open it and/or disarm it. If that level is met: you're successful. If the level is not met: you are not successful. Easy.

3. All treasure is either predetermined or is determined upon entering the area, and any treasure dropped by a foe is determined upon the foe's death. Again: easy.

So... where's the problem, here? Why all this attachment to re-rolling your treasure? I find it especially interesting that re-rolling is being defended by people who don't re-roll, as if they want to be able to brag about their noble ability to resist re-rolling. So what? Honestly, I do not care if you get through an entire game without re-rolling. I do not care if you decided to stick with your original rolled stats or not. What I care about is how the game makes me feel while I'm playing it. The re-rolling thing affects the atmosphere, and it affects the game-dynamics.

Saying "Do not re-roll" when the game practically begs you to re-roll is like saying "Don't bother fulfilling every single quest." Well, of course I'm going to fulfill every quest, because I want the strongest possible character. It's the same thing with re-rolling for treasure. If I'm allowed to re-roll for my treasure then I want the best possible treasure, every single time. And after a while, all this re-rolling becomes tedious. So, you say, stop re-rolling. Okay, so I stop re-rolling, but then I know that my character is not as strong as it could've been had I re-rolled and gotten better treasure. Perhaps that sounds minor, but it's something that bothers me, as a player, and therefore affects my enjoyment of the game. Other games do not seem to have this problem.

Really... I think that the best solution is to provide an opening-screen option to choose at which point your treasure is re-rolled, and the game-play is arranged to work with each reality. Unfortunately, this would require more programming, but if so many people are so adamant about being able to re-roll for their treasure: I suppose there should be an option to placate these people.

Basilisk:
Can you confirm that this will be an option, in the game? If you can then I'm pretty sure that it will end the debate.

Evnissyen wrote:Basilisk:
Can you confirm that this will be an option, in the game? If you can then I'm pretty sure that it will end the debate.

Yeah, we've got a system in place that should satisfy everyone....but I've enjoyed reading these debates too much to bother saying anything.

All will be revealed in time, but as noted from our previous interview with RPGWatch: you can play the game with any rule(s) enabled that you want, the only difference will be that the harder you make your game, the higher your end-game ranking will be (which means nothing to anyone but yourself) and you'll also get a slightly better payout on treasure generation. So for example, if you chose to make every random function based on a preset seed (which would make all loot generation and lock picking random but yet with a repeatable outcome if you re-load and try again) then you can play like this and get a 10% end-game rank bonus and perhaps as much as a 10% "loot quality" bonus on item generation.

Also, you cannot change the rules mid-game, so once you commit to them, that is how your game must be played.

The only thing I really took issue with was this:

Evnissyen wrote:This feature as it is, being an immutable part of the game that nobody can ignore but must actually employ if one wants an effective character,

Because and effective character CAN and HAS BEEN built in the Book I system without re-rolling. And saying otherwise, while it may not have been intended as such, sounds a whole lot like pointless whining, and that really irritated me.

Personally I can understand why you're annoyed with re-rolling, it does make the game a little less enjoyable because you spend less time playing and more time than should be spent on getting items or securing one's desired stats.

But then again it's not such a big issue for me, because it's ultimately the fault of the player and not the system. That's what I think anyway. The system could be modified yes, and in many respects should be modified, re-rolling to me is low on the list such that truly I don't really care about.

Edit:
As one who didn't play table top or older (heavily table top based) rpgs so much, rolling for stats was new and interesting for me, and too be honest I kind of like it better it allows for a greater distribution of difficulty than basic difficulty levels plus it can be specific difficulties in particular areas as opposed to in general terms.

I like the idea of rolling because though I will predictably always use all of my bonus attribute points I like the potential for differences and specific challenges that your beginning stats offer, Like when I found out that with both strength and endurance under 10 your character will never gain max HP. Anyway I support stat rolling, I say keep that. Loot/lockpick/trap rolling I think the current system is generally okay but I'm fine with whatever develops.

Let me take this point by point.

1. I like the stat rolling screen. Yes, I like the nostalgic feel. It brings back memories of those old school CRPGs. And yes I still have all of my old school CRPG's including the gold box games.
This is why Eschalon appealed to me. So I would change nothing.

2. Guaranteed success? Where is the possibility for failure? I do not care how good you are at a skill there is still the potential for failure. If you want to say the better your skill at a task the lower your chance of failure I would agree, but not guaranteed success. Where is the excitment in that? Where is the challenge?

3. The problem is you wish to take away my choice to reroll or not to reroll. I want to have the choice whether or not I choose to do it. I do not want my choices limited any more than they have to be. That is the problem.

Evnissyen wrote:What I care about is how the game makes me feel while I'm playing it. The re-rolling thing affects the atmosphere, and it affects the game-dynamics.

I also care about how the game makes me feel while I am playing. You are right it affects the atmosphere and game dynamics. But for me the affect is positive.

BW was trying and succeeded in making an old school CRPG like those of yesteryear. Yes that meant it came with the design limitations of that type of game. It also comes with the features that endeared those games to a generation of people.

If Eschalon had been made any other way I probably would have pass on it. But it was different because it reminded me of what use to be and how much fun I had playing those games. The Spiderweb games on the other hand do not appeal to me. And yes I have played them from Exile to the new Exile incarnation Avernum. I found my match with Eschalon. I have a blast playing it.

I realize that BW has already responded with info on new changes in Book II, but I'm feeling the need to flog the dead horse today.

I'll save the most controversial subject for last.... so first up....

Not that its really part of this posting, but I have to agree with the nostalgia of rolling your character. It helps define the "old school" in "old school rpg"

Trying to disarm a trap without a chance of failure and setting off the trap sort of defeats the purpose of a trap. I can understand it with lockpicking, but not traps. We need that sense of danger...

Lockpicking and Skullduggery; I believe they could use some balancing. XP should scale with a combination of your skill, the chest/trap level, and your character level. Something that will discourage the lockpick/skullduggery re-load trick and encourage the placing of points into those skills. Or maybe there needs to be an element of critical failure chance for someone with a low level skill trying to open/disarm a high level chest/trap. Say, if you have a level 1 lockpicking skill and you try to pick a lock that only has a 5% success rate, you stand a chance of breaking the lock. Or even a person with a skill of level 1 has a 0% chance to pick a level 5 lock. Then the only way to open the chest is to bash it which creates the chance of smashing the loot inside. I'd be game at removing the XP for locks altogether (or making it trivial) since you should be picking it for a reason other than the XP.

Now, on to the fun part.....

Re-rolling treasure. We've all done it, we're all guilty (this means you!! I can't believe it!!). Does it make us cheaters? Maybe. Does it ruin the game? I don't think so. Can it be made better? I'm sure there could be some balancing made to increase the quality of loot in some chests vs others, especially with varying difficulty levels of the locks. Just for the record, there are hundreds of games out there with cheat codes, and I never use those cheat codes... even though I know them and they're constantly dangling in front of me. Of course, having said that, I can already hear the "that means exploit was designed to be used!!!" We could argue the semantics all day long. Let's just accept that it was a programming decision made to ensure the game was released sooner rather than spend more time programming and testing. I prefer games that I can play over those that I just hear about all the time. Basilisk has obviously taken the complaints and comments into account and is making changes for Book II in attempt to appease as many people as possible, making my comments pretty much redundant. Personally I don't think they should bother since it increases the programming involved and consequentially the length of time until we get to play Book II, but it's their decision. I also think calling them bad designers because they made a particular programming decision that you might not agree with is downright rude. Book I was the first game, after all. Sacrifices have to be made for deadlines and such. Personally I'm happy playing the game the way it is, and could care less if they just released more of the same. I look forward to more RPG'ing, old shool style!