Originally Posted by
Al-Khwarizmi
Good ideas in there, but how about Tutorial, Casual and Classic? Or Tutorial, Casual and Roguelike?
Tutorial is IMHO the most accurate description of the tutorial mode, and Casual, now that you mentioned it, is an accurate description of what used to be called the easy mode.
I personally think "Casual" is more fitting a description for the Tutorial mode than the simplified-but-still-very-difficult mode currently called "Standard" as it implies pick-up-play games without much challenge to them. And the middle mode is hard indeed-!
But Casual and Classic work very well together generally, IMHO. It does at least help explain why people don't gain achievements for the mid-difficulty mode.
Originally Posted by
ixi
It feels really weird with me and my friend I brought to ADOM not that long ago that achievement aren't given in a mode called "standard" and you have to play "hard" to get them. Call it "roguelike". It's something new players have to understand. "Easy" seem to be attempted by my friends in any game only if they're getting challenged on standard difficulty. Since ADOM isn't a kind of "easy to learn, hard to master game" one does really need a tutorial or introduction to learn some basics before he kills himself.
Agreed. I think Roguelike makes more sense than Hard, and Classic makes sense to me as well because the mode is both the original intent and build for ADOM. Either way I expect that people will more likely gravitate toward playing the original-difficulty mode if it's named 'Classic', as they'll assume it's the intended gameplay experience.. which it is! Or at least be intrigued if it's named 'Roguelike'; the term is coming back into vogue.
Originally Posted by
Taederias
This has already been the topic of endless discussion previously (which I myself have participated in somewhat), but new insights are always good to have, I think, especially now that a larger crowd has gotten their hands on the new version.
I agree that Tutorial is the most apt description of the mode in question and should definitely stay that way, as the intention is to actually teach basic game concepts to new players, and that's the label that most reliably invites them in regardless of their appetite for challenge later on.
As for the roguelike mode, I mostly stand by my earlier view that Classic or Roguelike would be best as names. The point of calling it Hard was to indicate progression, but that could also be communicated by calling the middle option Simplified or Casual, and then just calling the third mode, say, Roguelike. That sort of has the ring of "that's the true roguelike experience, so buckle up, it's gonna be rough" anyway, which the current description further enforces.
Overall I don't think the current names are bad in any way. The true roguelike mode having a double descriptor is a very minor issue, and the only other one brought up is that the players may be somewhat surprised by the fact that the "standard" mode is not really the standard in that it doesn't award achievements for example. That is a one-time surprise, after which they just accept it as is (the game does tell them what these modes entail), so not a pressing issue either, I think. As I noted, if there is anything I would change most it's the name "standard" to "casual" or "simplified" (and then possibly remove the extra "hard" indicator from beside the word Roguelike, as Simplified and Casual both would themselves imply the existence of a harder mode -- the description can and does draw attention to it being fairly difficult anyway).
I'm actually an older player myself, but missed the original discourse - although it was brought to my attention before I posted this RFE. I'm not trying to open a closed can of worms here - just suggesting that terms are chosen and solidified per mode, and chosen as uniformly as possible, compared with how the names stand presently; all in order to add polish and avoid the potential impression of an unfinished game without proper English localisation. The reason I believe the current terms need that polish is that they just don't work intuitively taken as-is in this way, and that they aren't unified in terms of their display names or in one case font size. Better to change the name than have one of the buttons look strange and awkward - that's why the dual descriptor is off-putting. The font has to be smaller to wrap properly, which seems like a fix for an issue that could easily be avoided. It's also still confusing for the player IMHO.
I agree, I don't think Roguelike / Classic as names actively require the "Hardmode" descriptor to be present on the button if it can be present in the mouseover text. That's where my comments on unity of format come from.
I have to say I agree with you regarding your Tutorial name points. It's just a little strange for a tutorial, in general, to still encompass the main plot and length of a game is all! Casual reflects the level of focus and difficulty needed too, IMHO.
I also agree that changing Standard to Simplified/Casual would work alongside the harder mode being named simply Roguelike/Classic. As to which version to choose, any combination of those four terms could honestly work.
In any case the reason I listed so many ideas was to help cover dev team and player preference so I don't necessarily mind what ends up being interesting to everyone so long as they're solid by final build.