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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignFarming in a roguelike ?
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LOUD
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« on: June 20, 2015, 01:34:18 PM »

Hello Smiley

I am currently working on a game using roguelike mechanisms and i am facing an issue : some fight brings to an inevitable death no matter the player plays well. This happen because right now, when you get hit during a fight, you can't heal.
In my game, you fight a duel versus ennemy after ennemy. More you go far on the map of fights and more the ennemy will have health.
So, unfortunately, along your progression, you will lose bits of health fight after fight and at a moment, you won't have enough strength to kill the ennemy before he kills you first. The player's heakth don't grow as far he progress or win because there is no leveling for him.

The idea i have was that you can heal yourself eating the ennemy you just kill in order to regenerate part of your health. So, when you know that your health is to low, you can decide to get back on the map to fight a weak ennemy in order to gain health (the number of beast is limited on the map so you can't regenerate your life endlessly).

I was explaining this to a friend developer who said : "Farming health in a roguelike ? That's a little ugly, players don't want that.". I am not a huge player of roguelike so i would like to read what you think about that.
Just for saying, i know with some balancing i could make it work enough but i am searching for an optimal solution.
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ThemsAllTook
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« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2015, 01:55:57 PM »

Is it theoretically possible for a player with enough skill to complete the game without ever taking any damage? If yes, you're probably fine; if no, your solution might work OK as long as there's some risk involved in going back for weaker enemies. If it's relatively safe to backtrack to fill up your health bar, that's less interesting than if you actively have to decide whether you'd be safer pressing onward or safer turning back.
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« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2015, 02:11:15 PM »

@ThemsAllTook :
No, it's impossible to never take a damage and finishing the game.

The risk to coming back to regain life is that you will fight versus another enemy who can deal damages onto you if you don't find the optimal "strategy" depending on what items you will find (these items are randomly generated).

Also, when you kill an enemy and you decide to eat him, there is a chance that you become sick and lose some health.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 04:12:41 PM by repstyle » Logged
ProgramGamer
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« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2015, 04:05:49 AM »

@ThemsAllTook :
...
Also, when you kill an enemy and you decide to eat him, there is a chance that you become sick and lose some health.

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« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2015, 10:37:18 AM »

Certain enemies could give more or less health, and/or be safer or riskier to eat. For example, have an enemy that almost never poisons you when eaten, but does not give much health.

If you're worried about players spending too much time farming, you could limit the amount of time a player is allowed to stay on the current level. Several roguelikes have a function for this, such as gradually increasing enemy strength, or simply dropping you to the next level if you linger for too long. Perhaps a powerful enemy could be spawned after an amount of time, which would hunt down the player.
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Dacke
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« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2015, 11:05:22 AM »

DCSS:
Out of depth enemies over time
Enemies stop spawning over time
Health is renewable via resting, but resting costs food and hunting corpses on earlier level uses more energy than you gain from it

FTL:
Limiting backtracking by having an enemy chase you
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« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2015, 12:02:54 PM »

FTL:
Limiting backtracking by having an enemy chase you

it's called a food clock and it's a standard roguelike mechanic. FTL actually uses multiple food clocks (rebels chasing you and fuel).
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Dacke
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« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2015, 12:05:56 PM »

Hm, no. The fuel is a food clock, for sure. The enemies coming after you is a solid wall that strictly prevents you from backtracking. The different zones do this as well, come to think of it.
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« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2015, 12:13:07 PM »

FTL is a game about space, yet it restricts you in many more ways than games that take place on earth. Interesting.
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« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2015, 12:29:53 PM »

Hm, no. The fuel is a food clock, for sure. The enemies coming after you is a solid wall that strictly prevents you from backtracking. The different zones do this as well, come to think of it.

it's a mechanic that prevents grinding and forces to you to strategically plan your advance. sure sounds like a food clock to me.
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« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2015, 12:33:22 PM »

Yeah but it's not based on a number/resource so no.
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« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2015, 12:43:27 PM »

This thread is about different ways of preventing grinding. I guess you could call anything that does that a food-clock, but I think food vs. overwhelming enemies are different enough to warrant mention as two different things. Foodclock in DCSS, enemy wall in FTL.
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« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2015, 02:54:17 PM »

See it that way, enemy wall is reverse food clock, the food clock is not the enemy but the safe space that disapear
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« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2015, 03:44:06 PM »

FTL:
Limiting backtracking by having an enemy chase you

it's called a food clock and it's a standard roguelike mechanic. FTL actually uses multiple food clocks (rebels chasing you and fuel).

Thanks! I looked up food clocks after your comment and found a good article. http://www.moddb.com/games/cogmind/news/the-importance-of-roguelike-food-clocks

I totally agree that the rebels chasing you is a food clock. Not literally food, but it serves the purpose of forcing the player to move along without farming as much as they might like. I think it works more as a food clock than fuel in FTL, since you could just farm for more fuel if rebels weren't chasing you.

I've been thinking about this problem too, but in the context of Tactical RPGs. XCOM has specific missions with time sensitive elements, but without those it might be in your best interest to slowly move forward, going on overwatch frequently. In Invisible Inc, there's an alarm that ticks up every turn, increasing the danger of staying in the level too long. You can never make the alarm go back down, but playing wrecklessly can make the alarm go up faster.

No, it's impossible to never take a damage and finishing the game.

The risk to coming back to regain life is that you will fight versus another enemy who can deal damages onto you if you don't find the optimal "strategy" depending on what items you will find (these items are randomly generated).

Going back doesn't sound too fun, even with a food clock to prevent it from being abused (unless it's just a tiny bit of backtracking to get some good stuff you missed). Maybe there should be a way to take less damage if you play well, so the game isn't impossible? Or you could heal occasionally by going forward and reaching some kind of oases to rest.
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« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2015, 04:28:10 PM »

This is just a matter of terminology. But I don't like calling any system that fulfils a time-limiting role a "food clock". To me, food clocks are about managing a limited resource (food, fuel, etc.) which forces you to prioritize and keep on moving.

FTL fuel does indeed do this, because there is a finite number of encounters that give easy fuel, which limits it as a resource. It's just that the fuel clock isn't the primary time pressure in FTL.

There are other systems, like enemies chasing you and out of depth enemies, that fulfil a similar purpose. They are food clock-like in some regards. But they are also significantly different and lots of games (including FTL and DCSS) combine "food" and superdangerous timer-based enemies. Given that they are so different I think the terminology is clearer if we separate the two.
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« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2015, 04:32:38 PM »

I think with little to no healing, your health can kind of fulfill that function too. So the system described by the original poster says if the player fights everything without healing, they'll take too much damage and die. Maybe that should be what pushes the player forward, forcing them to choose what's worth fighting, or to attempt to avoid fights through stealth or negotiations. Then maybe you get to a checkpoint/end of level or whatever to heal. As long as the healing is limited right, this can stop a player from farming too much.
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« Reply #16 on: June 28, 2015, 07:05:00 AM »

Yeah, giving heals for progress rather than enemies defeated seems the ideal solution.

Or you know, let health decrease over time without providing enough heals to justify grinding - that already works as a food clock - perhaps you need ask why that feels unsatisfying for your game?
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« Reply #17 on: June 28, 2015, 02:54:12 PM »

I have a vague sense that it might feel frustrating to be half dead all the time. It's also worth noting that lots of people feel that aggressive food clocks in roguelikes are incredibly frustrating.

Another approach (which FTL also happens to use) is to have some kind of finite currency, that you can spend on healing or upgrades (levels/weapons/armor/whatever). You have to prioritize between getting powerful for the future and surviving in the moment, it can work as a really great trade-off.

Another option is to have an some kind of exponential drop-off for health restoration amount from low level enemies, similar to what many RPGs and Hack'n'slash games do for XP. Maybe you could give healing from enemies based on what level they are compared to you. You could design the game so that you are guaranteed to take some damage from all enemies, even weak ones, but only get a significant amount of healing from enemies near your level. That way you would lose health from farming low level enemies.

Yet another option is of course to simply generate a finite number of enemies.
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« Reply #18 on: June 30, 2015, 07:20:58 PM »

Could you find a way to scale your max health with the progression of the levels?
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« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2015, 02:45:23 AM »

Associating your health generation with some sort of risk or payment is one way to make it part of the rougelike experience. Just putting it as a reward or a simple drop is kind of easy on the player. If you're looking to be difficult with your game, you could make healing have diminishing returns. The more times you heal, the less actual health you regenerate, in order to push the difficulty and propel your player forward.
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