DFALCON'S PROFILE

Yeah. There's a 2:3:4 ratio that roughly holds (in HP too; there are tanks at all dodge levels). Fast super-specialization might be F6/M6/S6, whereas Slow super-specialization might be F2/M3-4/S12. Medium super-specialization I guess F2/M9/S9. (The Fast and Medium specs both are decent/good at hitting the next level up, but I can accept that.)

Barry in the picture probably isn't a terrific reference point - he's the main character and so far I have erred on the side of him being extra strong.

post=133592
If you die in a dungeon and literally the only way you can do better is grinding, it's an issue of terrible design, not the system used.

Edits galore: "Cautious play" means not mashing attack or BIGDAMAGESPELL on everything

I wouldn't be surprised to be able to do better on the fight that I died on. It's those fights I had in the dungeon leading up to that, that I've already succeeded on once or twice with near-identical stats so I probably already know the best way to deal with them.

(It's also worth pointing out again that these are common issues, not universal ones. If I were to point out, say, Megaman Battle Network, not only does some twitch keep it more exciting, but battles you've gotten good at tend to go quite fast, making this not so much of an issue.)

post=133539
That's an okay analogy! And the answer to that in games nowadays is 'save points' The concept of a save point in a strategically placed area allows the player to play that guy who's better at you in basketball with little fuss.

I think if you had a save point two steps before every boss, no dialogue before you hit the battle, plus maybe dungeon-escape items available, most people in this thread would not complain at all! Retry/autosave is mostly preferable because it saves you the time navigating a save menu before every boss.



As for harsher penalties... remember we're talking about single-player RPGs here. If you lose a battle, it's not like the game can reach out of the screen and punch you, or you won't be able to make the state championship this year. There's basically only one thing a single-player RPG can ever do to you: have you spend time on it and not advance. The only question is, how much time and what do you spend it doing?

Maybe you get kicked out to the nearest town or the beginning of the dungeon, then to get back to the boss spend some time wading through encounters you've already fought once or twice and hence mastered. Because that's about the longevity of a standard RPG enemy group.
Maybe you calculate that playing more cautiously will actually take less time than recovering from failures! Except that in a lot of RPGs playing more cautiously is not really a tactical choice. It just means you go out, grind something, and then try the dungeon overleveled with extra items - you're spending time to make the whole experience more boring.
Or maybe you're given the chance to try again right from the point you haven't managed to figure out yet! This puts some constraints on the designer (e.g., don't give the player "Win Button", 9999 MP, wins any battle 20% of the time), and if I continue to have trouble I still may have to back off and gather resources, but generally this sounds like a far more interesting way to use my time.


Roguelikes of course tend to feature the ultimate death penalty, but the better ones are able to make playing cautiously a more tactical choice. Perhaps you have to watch your available food, or monsters will respawn, or the ghost will come after you if you take too long, etc.
(Level select like Spelunky's shortcuts is also great. Using shortcuts gives me a position clearly inferior to someone who ran perfectly from the start, but they let me see new things, and practice on later areas without always running the starting areas first.)


So instant retry isn't a solution for everything, but a whole lot of RPGs could benefit from it. The player having the freedom to fail is just as much a benefit for the designer trying to make interesting challenges as the player trying to navigate them.

post=132896
I'd like to do it in a way that the player never directly choses stats boots or character progression... he'll just have to DO things.

I think that's interesting, because in a way the game would just recognize how you're using your characters, and make them better at that.

The difficulty in implementing such system is that you'd have to find a way to avoid inducing the player to dull repetitive tasks. Something similar to what happens in a MMORPGs.

The roguelike Dungeon Crawl has a decent way of handling this that avoids most of the FF2/Oblivion experience stupidity. Basically any time you get experience it goes into a pool. When you do something affected by a skill (e.g. Axes, Conjuration, Throwing, Traps & Doors) there's a chance that it will try to move XP from the pool, if there's any there, to that skill. If you're not interested in leveling particular skills you can turn their chance down a fair bit.

post=131421
I've been playing since the 2d days. (three years ?) Don't worry about the graphics after six months you'll be able to read that shit like the matrix.

Matrix mode high-five!

Funny, the DF site seems to be down right now.

Edit: The new release is out!

We actually have to irrigate underground dirt for farming now. It's been long enough since I played that I just dumped water into a chamber... and it's sitting there, at 4/7, evaporating glacially if at all... and I have no good way to pump it out. Hmm.