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[quinnr]

People, please take the discussion about the usage of the word "gay" to another thread or PMs. We don't want this thread locked, do we? Whales might just cry.

Also, I get that most roguelikes ARE insanely difficult to win. But this game is much more sandbox (at least at the moment). I really don't understand why we have to generalize that ALL roguelikes must be impossible to win without devoting your life to it...

As the game is quite sandboxy, I'd love if we were able to have a mediocre time surviving (not SUPER IMPOSSIBLE HARD, not SUPER EASY), and then be able to do things with nice rewards that were worth the risks (Science Lab, Wasp-houses). That way, hardcore players could brag about how awesome they are ("Dude, I got to the bottom of the Science Lab and killed everything!"), and those typical gamers can still have an enjoyable experience without dying in day one every game.

[BoomClap]

^ THAT was exactly what I wanted

[Whales]

Let me say this on the subject of difficulty: roguelikes are, generally speaking, hard.  They're hardcore games for hardcore players, and most of them are pretty unforgiving. 

I think this is what sucks about roguelikes in general. Its like some guy a long time ago sucked at making a game balanced (read: rogue and nethack), it caught on, and people have been aping that crap for years now. It seems to me making it overly hard for "hardcore" gamers (as if they are better or more discerning than the other rabble who like to have FUN) is just a excuse to ignore things like balance, progressive difficulty and other things that ramp the challenge up.

ok, END:RANT huff huff huff...deeeep breath...

Sometimes I like to play Crawl, but i refer DoomRL because its less stupid hard.

P.S. I havent played this game yet, no criticism intended toward it or the developer who's quote I used as my soapbox.

It's a valid opinion, and it's true that the "roguelikes are serious business and hardcooooore" is, at least a little bit, an excuse to avoid the careful ramping-up of difficulty found in many games.
I'm not trying to be snooty or disdainful of casual gamers when I describe this game as "hardcore;" really, I'm primarily a casual gamer myself, outside of the occasional immersive RPG or FPS.  But I really like games that challenge me, especially when just subsisting and surviving in the game is difficult.  I like games where I have to think about how I'm going to deal with a situation, rather than just throwing myself at a boss 15 times until I'm lucky enough to beat it (FPSs in general suffer from this problem).  This is what I mean by "hardcore;" games where you have to apply strategy, play carefully, and struggle to subside.

Cataclysm's kind of halfway between crawl and DoomRL.  Unlike crawl, it's rare to run into a single monster that'll kill you.  The pacing is much closer to an FPS--bursts of frantic action, periods of exploration, sprints of popping heads.  But it's also random, like crawl, VERY non-linear, and full of side-branches.

People, please take the discussion about the usage of the word "gay" to another thread or PMs. We don't want this thread locked, do we? Whales might just cry.

Also, I get that most roguelikes ARE insanely difficult to win. But this game is much more sandbox (at least at the moment). I really don't understand why we have to generalize that ALL roguelikes must be impossible to win without devoting your life to it...

As the game is quite sandboxy, I'd love if we were able to have a mediocre time surviving (not SUPER IMPOSSIBLE HARD, not SUPER EASY), and then be able to do things with nice rewards that were worth the risks (Science Lab, Wasp-houses). That way, hardcore players could brag about how awesome they are ("Dude, I got to the bottom of the Science Lab and killed everything!"), and those typical gamers can still have an enjoyable experience without dying in day one every game.

This is exactly what I'm going for.  I want the general game to be tough, and for the player to be kept on their toes, but easy enough that continuous survival shouldn't be THAT hard for a fairly seasoned player.  But there's also harder areas, which the player can explore at their discretion--thus, the player gets to choose the difficulty of their game, and higher difficulty has more rewards.

[beorn080]

A bug/exploit. If you continually unload and reload a gun, you get skill in that weapon type. So you can sit somewhere and quickly get a few levels of a various weapon, regardless of whether or not there are zombies nearby.

[Infuriated]

Really, I die a lot. A LOT. But I've found most of the 'difficulty' is brought about because I was going about things like an idiot, mostly because I was feeling the game out feature-by-feature and I'm slowly surviving longer, maybe only 30 minutes to an hour longer each time, but it's progress.

My only complaints, and this one being minor is that around 1~2 PM shit tends to hit the fan. It's like zombie hour, I'll run into packs of stuff even if I'm quiet as a mouse with inconspicuous and light step, normal zombies in hoards of 10+, necromancers, spitters, fast zombies and all kinds of other assortment of zombies just pour out of every crevice. It's annoying, but I recognize it as something I'll eventually learn how to outmaneuver eventually.

And my only major beef at the moment has already been discussed, the item limit. The quicker item stacking arrives the better.

[Tarran]

Whales, problem: gyroscopic stabilizers decrease accuracy by 3 instead of increasing it.

And my only major beef at the moment has already been discussed, the item limit. The quicker item stacking arrives the better.

This. Grabbing random ammo stacks are much harder when you've got the item limit.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah.  Please please please lower the monster spawn, or at least make the spawn ramp up more gradually, please make bladed weapons get stuck in less, please tweak the pain system.  Right now getting moderate injuries basically fucks you because you can't outrun the zombies anymore and you die a slow death trying to get away and chugging codeine.  Losing isn't fun when you've been playing for a long time and having a lot of fun and then bullshit happens and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

[GlyphGryph]

ducape and boomclap:
Stop acting so entitled. Not every game in the world is going to cater to you, especially ductape who has admitted he hasn't even played the game.

Different people have different tastes, and if you don't like the challenge level of a game, you can go play a different game. Some of us HAVE fun with games like this that we can treat like puzzles, where it is possible to do things wrong and make mistakes because you don't bother to think things through. Where you actually need to push your mental abilities to understand all the factors at work and how to turn them to your advantage, and exploit every discovery if you want a chance to make it through. That can be pretty exhilarating and enjoyable! Some of us just enjoy getting the crap beat out of us over and over again. To each their own, you know, if you don't like it, don't play, but don't be a jerk and start accusing those who do of not wanting to have "fun".
In essence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DBtOVNI

That said, I think this game has avoided a lot of traps that make other rogue-likes less fun, specifically things that kill you not because you did something dumb, but because the game got bored or some shit, and I think you'd like it, so do give it a try!

One of the best things about good "hardcore" games is, if you find yourself constantly dying, it is not because the game is hard so much as it is because you are doing something wrong. Not every strategy will lead to victory, so when you restart, trying something else and try to really understand how the interlocking pieces fit.

Also, Hard varies. Super-hard to one person is trivial to another. "progressive" games are generally capable of offering a target player the ability to be challenged throughout the game, but only ever rarely manage to make the game hard for a more skilled player. No matter which audience a game targets, its going to leave some players incapable of handling its challenges or unwilling to sit through what they consider a trivially easy waste of time.

But I've found most of the 'difficulty' is brought about because I was going about things like an idiot,

This, so much this, is one of the things I've enjoyed most about this game. The vast majority of tricky situations I've gotten myself into (still haven't died, but I've actually come close now) were because I made poor decisions.

I really don't understand why we have to generalize that ALL roguelikes must be impossible to win without devoting your life to it...

I'm pretty sure being a sandbox makes it even more impossible to ever win at it, actually. And its not about winning, anyways. You should be able to enjoy the game without winning.

That way, hardcore players could brag about how awesome they are ("Dude, I got to the bottom of the Science Lab and killed everything!"), and those typical gamers can still have an enjoyable experience without dying in day one every game.

One: Many 'hardcore' gamers have no desire to brag about it. Two: Putting yourself in a situation that will get you killed goes against everything that makes a hard game fun. Three: If the rest of the game is that easy, you'll have enough time to prepare to probably make anything else easy too. Finally: I don't think I've ever actually seen a game that pulled off having hard sections, without being hard, that was enjoyable for people who enjoy doing stuff that is hard. It usually devolves to a situation where the game is only hard if a player actively sabotages themselves, and that sucks all the fun right out of the "hardness" of it.

Also I made a thread for the more general non-this-game-in-particular discussion:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87989.0

[ThreeToe]

BoomClap has been muted for a week for using bigoted language.

[beorn080]

Another bug. Falling asleep while hallucinating runs the game minute by minute with all the hallucinations.

Edit: Another. Making Molotov cocktails leaves you with an empty glass bottle.

[quinnr]

Hmm, I think the difficulty right now is about right, actually. I was just responding to some of the comments people were making

[Infuriated]

Small suggestion, make it so dropping items works like picking them up, checking them off to be dropped instead of instantly dropping each item individually. This'll slow down dropping one item a little bit but I often find it annoying when I have to clear out a lot of items and keep inventory of my inventory between drops, which tends to happen when you reach the item limit.

Also, if items wont be stackable for awhile yet maybe have it so items of the same type are ordered together instead of ordered in the sequence that they were picked up.

[beorn080]

Hmm, I think the difficulty right now is about right, actually. I was just responding to some of the comments people were making

Agreed, for most things. Shovels seem to be a tad rare at the moment, and pain seems to be very powerful as a killing agent, but otherwise, it all seems balanced. Haven't gotten into the Bionics too much, but otherwise its great.

[Aqizzar]

Losing isn't fun when you've been playing for a long time and having a lot of fun and then bullshit happens and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

It's basically this in general.  Gameplay exists in a binary state - fucked vs not fucked.  And once you're fucked, it's all but impossible to get unfucked.

For me, almost every combat basically means game over, because if there's more than two zombies anywhere nearby, inevitably fifteen more will show up by the time I kill or outrun them.  Any loud noise attracts a shitload of enemies, and just hanging around the edge of town on the first afternoon, I was simultaneously mobbed by three bloaters, two spitters, three skeletons, a necromancer, two wolves, a giant ant, and more zombies than I could shake a crowbar at.  And they all spawned (if indeed they spawn) on the side away from town.  What am I supposed to do about that, oh ye of mad skills?

[Tarran]

For me, almost every combat basically means game over, because if there's more than two zombies anywhere nearby, inevitably fifteen more will show up by the time I kill or outrun them.  Any loud noise attracts a shitload of enemies, and just hanging around the edge of town on the first afternoon, I was simultaneously mobbed by three bloaters, two spitters, three skeletons, a necromancer, two wolves, a giant ant, and more zombies than I could shake a crowbar at.  And they all spawned (if indeed they spawn) on the side away from town.  What am I supposed to do about that, oh ye of mad skills?

Fast running, guns (preferably rifles, silenced if possible), and a lot of not-running-into-zombies-while-running-away. Remember to keep your distance, and wait for recoil to run down before firing again unless you're about to get eaten. Stock up on ammo as often as you can, use the more common ammo like 9mm and .223. Modify the gun with as much awesome stuff as you can find from a gunstore.

Zombies are easy prey, so are Necromancers. Boomers too. Hulks and such eventually go down. Fast zombies should be targeted first as they are pretty much the only ones that can catch up to you, but don't worry as they die with one shot from a rifle often. Skeletons are very hard to hit with bullets, so use disposable ammo or melee on them. Other zombies like shocking ones should be shot at as soon as you see them (press F and then the > or < keys to cycle, even if they're off-screen), as they can shoot as far as you can!

This technique almost always works for me in open areas. I can shoot down anyone who comes at me, just as long as it's not a Skeleton.