Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 15

Thread: It's painful to watch new players.

  1. #1

    Default It's painful to watch new players.

    It's painful to watch new players. This is a candidate worst case example. [edit: Haha! Ironically titled "First Look" -- that's great!]

    https://youtu.be/svN3gwPjZDk?t=36m17s

    Part of the reason I'm posting this is as a note to myself for future reference. Here's a demonstration that when players don't know what's going they often blame the game. Not that this guy was putting down the game. One of his thoughts was that he was invisible, because truly, his character could not be seen; he suggested it was a poor implementation of invisibility. I'm asserting that if he could fully trust the game, he might have dug for the solution -- but at the same time, I doubt very many of us can fully trust a strange program that we have just met.

    To the player's credit, for sake of presentation he quickly enough decided he wasn't making progress, and started over. Even if he had started paging through the list of commands, that's not what viewers like to watch. We just have to admit the watching the struggles against the learning curve aren't entertaining in nature.

    This example highlights what I fear when I recommend ADOM (and roguelikes in general) to other players. I just wanted to share because I find it interesting to consider aspects of game design, how to introduce new players to these games, etc. Right now I'm thinking if I made an introductory video, I would firstly stress reading every message ... and if you missed one, hit :m to find it.

    Hmm, he should have had a status message saying "blind". I might put forth a couple RFE's derived from this play.
    Last edited by Esoteric Rogue; 11-30-2015 at 05:20 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Posts
    122

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Esoteric Rogue View Post
    Hmm, he should have had a status message saying "blind". I might put forth a couple RFE's derived from this play.
    This is immediately what I noticed. There was a message in the message buffer but it was cleared almost instantly. The UI didn't seem to have any indicator at all that he was blind.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2015
    Location
    Poland
    Posts
    127

    Default

    Oh, the infamous mud in the face. Most of the new players will have problems with this. I had problems with this years ago. The entire wipe face command is only for this one particular randomly appearing room effect. It's not a good design. Just remove the faux-blinding effect entirely, change the message to "you are hit in the face by a glob of hot mud! you wipe it off" and apply that Ap+1 immediately. Leaving the one time status effect immediately removable by a special input serves absolutely no purpose except for laughing at the players who didn't read through all of the available commands. And it's not even intuitive, you'd rather search in manual for some description about impaired vision (that looks a whole lot like invisibility indeed) instead of looking through the list of commands.

    Also it's not being blind. It's not the same status. You can't cure blindness with wiping your face.
    Gate closers: GE Wizard, DE Archer, Ratling Elementalist, Ratling Duelist, GE Merchant, ME Druid, HE Mindcrafter, ME Monk

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Poland
    Posts
    1,757

    Default

    I'd say the +Ap effect should increase the longer the PC remains blind with mud on the face.
    Every 5k turns could increase the bonus by 1.
    "Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    Belarus
    Posts
    301

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous View Post
    I'd say the +Ap effect should increase the longer the PC remains blind with mud on the face.
    Every 5k turns could increase the bonus by 1.
    I see you're a pro in mud application ;-)
    Freedom through action!

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    1,923

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous View Post
    I'd say the +Ap effect should increase the longer the PC remains blind with mud on the face.
    Every 5k turns could increase the bonus by 1.
    So that you can get 99 Ap just waiting in an empty room, then drink a PoEx? No way. In fact, I propose changing the mud to a death ray. All of these insane exploits must be fixed

    I like the suggestion. It could also be tweaked slightly to continuously train Appearance rather than give a fixed +1 every X turns.
    "And light there be!"

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Posts
    1

    Default

    I haven't played ADOM yet but I have played other rogue-likes so I know what to expect with the nature of the Permadeath. People who are new to roguelikes think that ADOM's difficult nature is to blame and that it should be more forgiving. They think that the developer would cut them some slack and let them have a easy mode but guess what-



    ... Doesn't Happen! It doesn't happen like that! I for one think that people should try and outsmart the baddies. Be smarter than the Smarties and Tougher than the Toughies, and their victory shall be made Square.

    I will buy the game on steam however. And the dude's source code is his. He has every right to conceal what makes the game tick.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Okinawa, Japan
    Posts
    254

    Default

    So I watched some of this guys ADOM videos and honestly, I just don't think he has the resourcefulness necessary to be a decent ADOM player. He doesn't experiment enough to really figure out any of the game mechanics. He eats one corpse (a rat), throws up, never tries to eat another. Never uses monster memory. Never tries on the armor or weapons he gets, doesn't use tactics, has gone by like 4 co-aligned altars but just says "oh, that's strange" without even looking up the religion part of the game manual. He also doesn't talk to the NPCs half of the time (even though he knows the 'c'hat command) but then complains about having "no where else to go"... I think the game should be made as user friendly as possible, and the wipe 'f'ace thing is a legitimate thing that should be hinted at the first time it happens or something, but at some point after playing the game for an hour or two, you'd think he'd stop and take an hour or so to read the manual and at least *try* each command a few times to see what they do. He just keeps bumbling around lost hour after hour instead.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Posts
    17

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by anon123 View Post
    So that you can get 99 Ap just waiting in an empty room, then drink a PoEx? No way. In fact, I propose changing the mud to a death ray. All of these insane exploits must be fixed
    Ah, the famous "waste 480k turns being blind and doing nothing to get a stat to 99" exploit. Would totally overuse that one.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Oslo, Norway
    Posts
    92

    Default

    To be fair, I think that mud wipe from face thing is such a weird and pointless thing to have in the game, considering how many people have probably quit playing because of it.

    Oh wow I just felt everyone reading this post's mind as they think 'Hurr, durr, then they aren't smart enough for the rest of the game!'. Scary. Also, be that as it may, it really isn't good game design. I'm all for games being challenging, but obstacles like these are kinda silly.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •