Suggestion - Warning

[dislekcia]

The ideal here would be to have everything be settable by the player. I have no idea if I can pull that off well enough to keep it stable... That said, I'm a big fan of left-mouse-only play being possible, right click is really only optional fast-cancels and the like. It's a lot easier to add a button into combat than it is to come up with some magical number on delay protection that works for everyone.

Funny story: Initial testing of a delayed click system meant people were more likely to kill themselves. They got frustrated with the delay meaning they couldn't attack faster (obviously this was done on fully working hardware that wasn't double-clicking, so their problem perception was different) and would just spam clicks, which meant that they'd often be spamming after they should have already stopped clicking altogether. I think you can still see the echoes of this test in the old DD alpha thread on the Game.Dev forums

[gjaustin]

The ideal here would be to have everything be settable by the player. I have no idea if I can pull that off well enough to keep it stable... That said, I'm a big fan of left-mouse-only play being possible, right click is really only optional fast-cancels and the like. It's a lot easier to add a button into combat than it is to come up with some magical number on delay protection that works for everyone.

Funny story: Initial testing of a delayed click system meant people were more likely to kill themselves. They got frustrated with the delay meaning they couldn't attack faster (obviously this was done on fully working hardware that wasn't double-clicking, so their problem perception was different) and would just spam clicks, which meant that they'd often be spamming after they should have already stopped clicking altogether. I think you can still see the echoes of this test in the old DD alpha thread on the Game.Dev forums

Assuming it's using the same code, some of the delay protection made changing the settings obnoxious. I'd have to wait around a second between clicks to turn the volume down from 100% to 25%.

[keithburgun]

Just wanted to chime in here and say how terrible the idea of having mis-clicks and accidental deaths AT ALL in this game are.

To be clear, this is not a UI issue, it's a design issue. So if you add some new selection system or something that makes mis-clicks rarer, that's actually not solving the problem.

The reason that this is even a debate in the first place is an underlying property of the design. This game shouldn't even have death to begin with. I sense that death is kind of "locked in" due to the theme (even though the mechanics point the other direction), so whatever. The "misclick deaths", though, are not only unnecessary but a glaring design flaw.

>>That's over 10000 runs in which players died. That's way too high a number, surely! The game is broken! Well, no, it isn't. 96% of those death runs are immediately followed by another run from the same account. Compare this to the 32% following runs when players retire and 65% following runs that win

OK, so you are saying basically that you want the game to be harder. Fine - I agree actually - make it harder. But having there be a bigger chance to mis-click isn't the way to do that. Like, hell, by your argument, we should just add a small button somewhere on the UI that says "INSTANTLY LOSE". Hey, if you accidentally click on that, well that's great, the game is "harder"? I don't think anyone would argue that the game is actually any harder because of that, it's just more annoying to interact with.

I actually advocate making the beta MUCH harder than it is right now to get this effect. This game is really boring when it's not hard, more so than other games, and the fact that I just have to make sure I don't kill myself by clicking makes the game feel like an annoying chore, when it should feel like an interesting decision-machine.

So, make it harder in terms of the gameplay, the strategy, not due to mis-clicks.

>> Think about it, if death warnings were implemented, we'd basically have half as many retiring runs

Ok, then just increase the difficulty of gameplay itself so that the actual strategy part is harder.

>> Every time one of you anti-death pros sees that "warning" popup, you'd be happy that you avoided death there, reinforced in a good decision by us devs.

There should not be a pop-up, just nothing should happen when you try to attack a monster who would kill you.

>> I could wish for a system that would up my resource mining rate in SC2 if I wasn't building enough Drones, I mean I'd obviously MEANT to build those harvesters, right?

YES! If anything in a game is a NO-BRAINER, it should be automated or removed entirely! This is kind of a well-understood obvious game design guideline.

[dislekcia]

What's more boring, an easy run or a run that peters out into nothing as you slowly realise that you're not going to be able to win for whatever reason? Without death in-game, new players experience a hell of a lot of those drawn-out realisations of failure.

Right now our main focus is on helping new players get into the game, the number one complaint is always that the game is too hard. We're not toning down difficulty, we're bringing up the tacit information the game gives you to try and help new players learn faster. That said, nothing teaches like death.

Death as a reinforcement tool and death through misclicks are two completely different things.

P.S. I'm curious as to which runs are easy and thus boring for you? Maybe there's a bubble in difficulty that we haven't streamlined for better players properly.

[squirrelnest]

This seems to be an ... "ongoing" topic, so I'll try to keep my input short.

I don't want death-click protection in the game. Theme is pretty important in games, and DD's theme is that its disguised as a dungeon crawl game. Giving up that most basic element of rogue-likes would be like taking the backdrop away from a play. If it does wind up in the game, I hope its default setting is off. (So that new players experience the setting without that 4th wall mechanic.)

On the mechanical side, IMHO the design flaw being talked about is not with DD- its with the mouse itself. Sometimes it can be hard to line up your clicks without slowing down. This has nothing to do with DD, and everything to to with the limits of technology. There is no computer command for "you know what I meant to do." The choice will always be between limiting user input (reducing miss-clicks at the cost of speed of use) and not limiting user input. (requiring more caution on the player's part.)

[Lujo]

Dislekcia's P.S. question is actually really important and interesting, I hope there's an answer.

And squirrelnest is right about what DD's theme is - it's a puzzle disguised as a dungeon crawler. You can't win an argument about going full puzzle for several reasons:

1) It's a design decision. From my point of view a terrible, wrong, counterproductive and contemptible one, and I've said this in various tones and volumes before. But the game is great enough that you have to respect it's makers and take it for what it is in pretty much any issue which boils down to "what is all this roguelike crap doing in the best puzzler ever?". For you, or me, or in my assessment 99% humans in the world, it's an issue, for them it's their decision. Maybe they would never have been as motivated if they set out a puzzle game in the first place, or not be as motivated not to work on a roguelike? Maybe if they didn't believe they were making a roguelike this awesome puzzle game wouldn't exist at all? Who knows what motivates them as people? Who has right to inquire? But we all want them motivated because outside of personal genre/taste prefferences they're pretty incredible.

2) Death makes the game addictive. True, it's the worst sort of way to make it addictive, and the game is probably one of the rare ones which don't really need as much artificial difficulty, but as a hook you in tool it works well enough that you can't take the "death as learning/motivational tool" argument out of the discussion. It's only partly right, but since it isn't 100% wrong you can't bypass it.

3) Beneath everything it's a matter of taste, even if it's not clear. Sure, various viewpoints get rationalizations, justifications, expirience and booksmarts brought up, but in the end you're telling the guy who's making a game (or has made the game) that what he wants is, for the lack of a better word, unreasonable or counterproductive. I've been part of this discusion before this thread, and in several incarnations on different issues, and I've yet to see enough reasonable evidence to support such a firm stance as the dev's have. On the other hand, just about any reasonable reason I've seen people come up with on the other side boils down to "Guys do you realize just how good a puzzler you've got here?", and get progressively more annoyed with the dawning realization that they might not. And in the end all that's left is both sides being bitter and resentful at each other, and with no real malice on either side. Which is why you don't debate tastes in general.

4) Marketing. Who's gonna believe another puzzler in a sea of puzzlers is the holy grail? But if you can market it as a hybrid between an acessible genre (puzzlers) and a hip hardcore übergeekluk (balkaneeze) it stands out. Fortunately it's as good as it is and very much more a puzzler than a roguelike so puzzle fans get hooked like files on sugar, while unfortunately when roguelikeness rears it's ugly head they get righteously annoyed as you just did (or would if you pursue the pointless debate instead of contributing about your expirience with the game such as it is).

5) Compromises - you have to make them. The ones allready made on both sides get silently brought into this kind of argument so both sides tend to start them at least slightly pissed off. One who's annoyed at stuff like limited lockers or death as such piles up frustration for a long time by noticing them chafe every time he encounters them. And if the dev's really wanted to be roguelike developers, I can imagine they've made quite a few concessions up until now. Enough to be at least mildly annoyed at anyone asking for more...

Well, that's it, hope noone takes it the wrong way. Cheers.

[dislekcia]

Lujo tends to assume that the entire world sees things the way he does. Despite loads of evidence to the contrary

[Waterd103]

You are making the wrong correlation-Causation logic train of thought.

1.I've died quite a bit. and Yes it's more likely rerun if i died that if i actually lost. For several reasons.
Ive pissed off and frustrated when I die, I want to play a full game after it, It didn't even feel like a whole experience, just being cheated. Most of my "deaths" are actually me getting bored on how easy the game is and me spam clicking without thinking just wanting to to move to whatever level is gonna be hard. This is specially hard if im fireballing with a non 5 mana cost fireball, I hotkey click the monster, and i died..forgot fireball cost X more mana.
A game being great enough (to me it isn't to me it's one of the best ideas for a game ever crushed under a pile of bad design decisions), it doesn't make it immune to criticism, if anything are great games that should be scrutinized more because it means we have something worth improving, instead of some trash game that is just a waste of time.
In fact that is why i'm even bothering posting here. I'm really excited with this game i discovered no more than 3 days ago. Because many of it's ideas are WOW amazing. So this game could be potentially what i consider a great game.
But overall death doesn't make it a rouglike or what not. Death means you have to waste time thinking about decisions that are not important, and sometimes dying because misclick.
The SC and SF I strongly disagree with both. Fireball motions and Drone controlling doesn't make the game better. Smash brothers doesn't have fireball motions and it works fine, For many people games like Dawn of war 1 are more fun to play because they don't have all that lame drone control. We can talk about why SF or SC are more successfull regardless. But don't trap on the flaw of "if something succeded, EVERTHING that did was the best possible option" Because is just a huge fallacy.

but in the end you're telling the guy who's making a game (or has made the game) that what he wants is, for the lack of a better word, unreasonable or counterproductive

It's in part what i want, in part what i think it's a better design decision
****
*To Dislekcia:
The most boring thing is an easy run, period.
Ive been playing a 2 hours or something and I really lost one or two times, and mostly because i don't take the runs seriously i just jam my way in. Hoping to find the hard runs...so far there are none What runs are easy? Interestingly some of the puzzles are pretty hard. Sadly the only think i have to stop thinking is to not click one more than i want to so i don't die.

It's sad when the the hardest part of the game for the first 2 hours is not misclicking in a game without a clock, the only reason one hurries is to try to escape boredom.

[Lujo]

Lujo tends to assume that the entire world sees things the way he does. Despite loads of evidence to the contrary

Lujo tends to play this up, but is sort of amazing to see a dwarf tinker call out a halfling tinker on tinkerdom so often

to me it isn't to me it's one of the best ideas for a game ever crushed under a pile of bad design decisions), it doesn't make it immune to criticism, if anything are great games that should be scrutinized more because it means we have something worth improving, instead of some trash game that is just a waste of time.
In fact that is why i'm even bothering posting here.

That's the bluntest, most diresct and honest thing someone ever posted about it, but you are only half right. Yes, certain design decisions are, to a certain type of person, obviously counterproductive. But there is no we when discussing it.

You're in a tricky position (I'd know) here - you've just told a bunch of guys who went out and did something and got nothing but praise for it (most of it well deserved), earned money, respect, and yes, fame, that it's a shame it was them who've stumbled upon a great idea. And they're the guys who call the shots, it's their baby, their intelectual property, their time, effort and their big break.

And the thing is, they didn't just stumble upon the idea - they've executed it well and awesomely in many ways. So well in fact that it wouldn't be fair to call them hacks and call the game a botched job. But as far as some decisions go, you'll find plenty of people who'll agree they were wrong (not the entire world, ofc). Yet in order to go back on these decisions, you'd have to get the devs to partially admit that they can/could've handled something better than they did, that the game is in fact greater than them. Why would they do that?

I'm not sure there's a big enough stack of money to shower people with that would make them accept something like that, let alone arguments. Big Boys will certanly offer them money to sell it to them, and if it's comes from someone who's not a bussiness man but a designer they'll know exactly what to do to turn quite a proffit. But I'm knid of hoping they don't sell but improve.

If you're looking for consolation look at this way (it's the way I'm looking at it) - they're young, they'll learn. There'll be plenty of people complaining about this whole issue, and if everything else works great, DD2 will happen eventually, and if they haven't learned or come to understand this well enough to fix it, someone else will make something simmilar enough without the flaws. And if they do sell it to anyone capable, it'll need little time before it's back on the market without these few things.

(Oh, and do VT VGT while you're waiting if the game is so easy. Or try classes which aren't Rogue and Monk. Try purist. Try vicious. Try badgehunting. Try figuring transmuter out. Try gold challenges. Give it a few weeks.)

[dislekcia]

You are making the wrong correlation-Causation logic train of thought.

1.I've died quite a bit. and Yes it's more likely rerun if i died that if i actually lost. For several reasons.
Ive pissed off and frustrated when I die, I want to play a full game after it, It didn't even feel like a whole experience, just being cheated. Most of my "deaths" are actually me getting bored on how easy the game is and me spam clicking without thinking just wanting to to move to whatever level is gonna be hard. This is specially hard if im fireballing with a non 5 mana cost fireball, I hotkey click the monster, and i died..forgot fireball cost X more mana.

Well, now you know how much mana fireball costs Plus there's a bit of broken feedback there: The game didn't tell you that the cast failed (NOT having a fireball cursor effect isn't a strong enough message) that's in our list of stuff to fix. Once we get a cast-fail animation/sound, that should help... Not alleviate the entire problem, but help prevent misclicks.

A game being great enough (to me it isn't to me it's one of the best ideas for a game ever crushed under a pile of bad design decisions), it doesn't make it immune to criticism, if anything are great games that should be scrutinized more because it means we have something worth improving, instead of some trash game that is just a waste of time.

Don't worry, I totally get that kind of thinking about criticism and I'm flattered that you think so highly of the game. Speaks to the way we handle crits - I like being wrong The problem is that there's always so much context around this sort of stuff that often it's not about finding the right thing to do for which people, it's figuring out if you even can do any of those things in the first place.

In fact that is why i'm even bothering posting here. I'm really excited with this game i discovered no more than 3 days ago. Because many of it's ideas are WOW amazing. So this game could be potentially what i consider a great game.
But overall death doesn't make it a rouglike or what not. Death means you have to waste time thinking about decisions that are not important, and sometimes dying because misclick.

We don't think the game is a roguelike because of the death, in fact, that's a pretty poor reason for it to be one in the first place. We think it's a roguelike because the puzzle aspect of the game arises from the random generation rules. We actually have very little way to tell if a specific dungeon run is going to be successful or not as you're playing through it. A dungeon isn't a designed scenario, like the puzzles, it's an interaction between player skill, luck and the rules of the game. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that correctly, but that's what we feel makes the game a roguelike at its core.

The SC and SF I strongly disagree with both. Fireball motions and Drone controlling doesn't make the game better. Smash brothers doesn't have fireball motions and it works fine, For many people games like Dawn of war 1 are more fun to play because they don't have all that lame drone control. We can talk about why SF or SC are more successfull regardless. But don't trap on the flaw of "if something succeded, EVERTHING that did was the best possible option" Because is just a huge fallacy.

Oh, that's not my assumption at all, I just tend to view games in a greater context. For instance, Super Smash Bros not having massive dexterity gates is a direct result of the way their damage model works. The way damage actually impacts how far you fly when hit changes up so much about fighting game assumptions that I can only assume that dexterity gate motions hampered the enjoyment of playing. Hence why one of the major existing dexterity tests in SSB, throwing items, was duplicated on the c-stick to make it easier. In fact, your whole SSB play-experience changes when you figure out the c-stick interaction, it makes your more powerful moves more reliable (up-smash FTW) and it helps deal with the unfairness of random item drops because any player now has the ability to control more space with accurate throwing. Also, I'm not a huge fan of dexterity gates in fighting games myself, but I can understand what they achieve from a design perspective. Winning with a clutch Ultra is amazing

We can talk about how DoW's downplaying resource micro turned into hero unit micro out in the middle of the map as players tried to extend as far as possible early-game, but that's a whole different discussion (and I know less about DoW, having only watched high-level games, not played it that way myself).

but in the end you're telling the guy who's making a game (or has made the game) that what he wants is, for the lack of a better word, unreasonable or counterproductive

It's in part what i want, in part what i think it's a better design decision
****
*To Dislekcia:
The most boring thing is an easy run, period.
Ive been playing a 2 hours or something and I really lost one or two times, and mostly because i don't take the runs seriously i just jam my way in. Hoping to find the hard runs...so far there are none What runs are easy? Interestingly some of the puzzles are pretty hard. Sadly the only think i have to stop thinking is to not click one more than i want to so i don't die.

It's sad when the the hardest part of the game for the first 2 hours is not misclicking in a game without a clock, the only reason one hurries is to try to escape boredom.

Aha! That sounds like we're not helping to accelerate good players fast enough. Which dungeons have you found so far and have you been doing quests to try and get gold, or do you feel that getting gold isn't helping to push you towards more in-depth gameplay?

I agree there's definitely a mismatch between some players' experience of ingame difficulty and their expectation to not die suddenly to something like a Gorgon or a Goblin taking them down when they're not paying attention. Curse that Goblin Itch... And yes, I can understand how that would indeed be frustrating.