Cheating is endemic in rpgs. Being forced not to reload puts you on disadvantage

[Black Angel]

i assume you didnt read anything, so ill bring back actual rpg example:

it is what you make it to be.

It was supposed to point out that even if you reload only on death in battle, it rises your effective hit chance while lowers enemy hit and crit.
Granted I might have not made it clear nor im good at making polls. Looking at results it appears that codexers are playing mainly ironman which is laughable(and doesnt match other threads about ironman).
Lets look at following example: you build a high initiative, evasive glass cannon. Enemies got mere 10% chance to hit you and they need to hit twice.
Your strategy is clear: you expect to start battle first and put down few enemies before they can act. Lets say you play alone against 6 enemies. Since after your action 4 enemies are still standing and they attack once each, chance of you losing is 1%. Quite laughable.
Thing is you are expected to die once in 100 such rounds. Obviously game will throw more at you. What you will do is reload. It can also be more extreme, like having bad initiative roll and enemies starting first or boss critting which will force you to reload too.
You went through the game with only single reload on highest diff. Your build must be awesome.
Except its not how it works. You have rigged game in your favor.

And if you think that this example was too extreme, judging by replies high initiative glass cannon was chosen best build in DOS1, here on codex.

In what fucking shit of games devs actually tried to address these 'problems' and why should I care?

i dont see it as problem nor i enforce devs to do anything. Just clearing delusion of players thinking that they actually played on advertised difficulty.

I gotta admit it's my mistake of ever bringing you up whenever my true intention was to solely reply to Sigourn's posts, but dude, literally every post you've made in this thread so far where you seemed trying to 'explain' or making something 'clear' has been nothing but some inane ramblings to me, and bringing up your previous post only made it worse.

Okay, you don't see people reloading as a problem or whatever. But you want to clear the 'delusion' of players 'thinking that they actually played on advertised difficulty'? What?

Then you're too shortsighted to see the impact it has on game design when save scumming is accepted as the norm. Nobody's forcing you to spend money on DLC either. Does it seem like a good thing when everyone does and games get butchered into a million shitty pieces? Is pay to win totally fine because losing is just as good an option?

Can you please show me an RPG where savescumming became the norm these days? Aside from the aforementioned New Vegas where supposedly Josh Sawyer himself admitted that they tried to address Fallout 3's savescumming problem, I don't think there's any RPGs or even games where savescumming is a problem that made it worse for people who don't want to savescum. At least, RPGs and games that we Codexers really need to care, that is.

There's no need for an elaborate system at all. 1 save slot, erased on loading, backed up in case of the game crashing. Almost nobody savescums games built that way, while pretty much everyone savescums games like the infinity engine games or fallout or elder scrolls, because those games were designed with that in mind.

I have some question based on your statement here. From '1 save slot, erased on loading, backed up in case of the game crashing', I'd assume when you say the games you mentioned 'were designed with savescumming in mind' means that they have multiple slots that's not erased on loading, no?

How did you declared that "There's no need for an elaborate (save-load) system at all." when you then specifically mentioned "1 save slot, erased on loading, backed up in case of the game crashing." is the actually 'elaborate' one here, while the opposite that's supposed the system used by the games you mentioned (Infinity Engine, Fallout, TES) was actually kind of the norm that's not really as elaborate as you make them out to be. Multiple slots, not erased on loading are pretty simplistic mechanic, don't you think? And it's obviously the norm because, in the old days when highly likely there's only one copy of a game in one house, and multiple person wants to play that game separately, multiple save slots that aren't erased on loading were meant for that kind of situation, no? I can understand demanding an elaborate system where saves are backed whenever a crash happen, I mean multiple games already did that by having auto-saves during or upon finishing loading new areas and such. But to deem multiple slots that aren't erased upon loading as being designed for savescumming?

Also, can you elaborate how did savescum became a problem in Fallout 1&2? I don't really have much experience in Infinity Engine games because the only game which content I've experienced in a good chunk were PS:T, I don't care about TES series, nor do I really care about Fallout:NV in this discussion, let alone Fallout 3, but from my experience across the games you've mentioned, I don't see how savescumming ruined the experience for anyone who doesn't savescum, nor do I see it being a problem in foreseeable future at all.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Wysardry]

If I roll a standard die, the chances of getting a 6 is 1 in 6.

If I get a 5, don't like that and roll again, the chances of getting a 6 is still 1 in 6.

 

[MpuMngwana]

If I roll a standard die, the chances of getting a 6 is 1 in 6.

If I get a 5, don't like that and roll again, the chances of getting a 6 is still 1 in 6.

In a vacuum, yes. But you don't re-roll in a vacuum.

If you roll a die, then roll again if you don't get a 6, probability of rolling a 6 is 1/6 + 1/6 * 5/6, or 11/36, all in all a larger chance. If you roll a die n times, re-rolling unless you get a 6, your probability is a sum of 1/6*(5/6)^i, where i goes from 1 to n. Your chance to, over a number of rolls, never get a six once will never become zero, but it will become ALMOST zero.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Sigourn]

And I asked you by what logic is reloading if a character dies in game supposedly designed for a fixed number of characters using it to your advantage and not simply "reloading to be able to keep playing the game".

Because the game provides you with opportunities to revive those characters legitimately during the course of Icewind Dale. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but in that case I really have to wonder why bother adding such services in the game (and this goes for Baldur's Gate too).

There is nothing unfair about reloading if a character dies because you need to have a full party. There you go.

But you never "need" to have a full party: you said this yourself. If having a full party was needed, the game should Game Over when you lose your first party member.

The game is tailored around the possibility of party members dying: that's why you can go to certain NPCs and ask them to resurrect a character.

Except RNG hardly plays the role you make it out.

Always? Of course not. But in quite a few instances it can, especially when it's not just you against one single enemy.

Reloading the game at any point for anything is using an external feature.

It's true that it is an external feature. But it is the game telling you "alright, give it another try". The other is... questionable, to say the least.

Well.. then what? Which is it? You don't think it's designed for 6 characters, but it's also not designed for 1 or 2.

The game is clearly biased towards having a large party (over three characters).

Ah, so we get to this. Waah waah I don't want to die.

If you weren't such a retard maybe you would realize this is not about dying: it's about punishment. Dying and reloading isn't anywhere near as punishing as surviving but losing valuable ore. Not only because "surviving" in this case doesn't mean "I beat the enemy", but "the enemy spared me".

FeelTheRetards, I guess. Not going to bother with this pathetic attempt at a discussion anymore.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[kirin]

One interesting take on probability is the recent Frozen Synapse 2 where combat is fully deterministic and the outcome of any sequence of events can be simulated. But from the player's perspective there is uncertainty over what the enemy will actually choose to do out of all his available options. The player can plan for the most likely scenario, the worst case scenario, etc. Maybe there is some randomness in the AI's behavior tree too, but only the developers know.

 

[groundhog]

Lucaszek asked if reloading actually makes the game easier and obviously the answer is yes, but I would ask why does it matter? The difficulty level isn't some empirical measure, it's not a mark in an exam or a time for running a marathon. It's simply a guide and you accept that the way you play could increase or decrease that difficulty.

For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of an RPG is finding that sweet spot of difficulty. Encountering the fight where you survive by the skin of your teeth, or that kicks your ass the first time and makes you re-think your tactics and try again (and possibly again). Difficulty that encourages you to explore and test the available options, without becoming an exercise in frustration or a reliance on cheese. So what if you die, just give it another go, no one else is watching. Again for me, part of the fun is the element of chance involved. The well laid plan which collapses because of the failure of your first spell and desparately trying to overcome it. Or being down to your last, weak NPC, who pulls off an improbable kill of a deadly opponent.

However, I believe you have to be prepared to work with a game to get the right level of challenge for you. Don't be afraid to turn the difficulty up or down, try different classes and tactics, change your rules of when and how often you save. I mean you can sit there and insist you play in a certain way and then throw your toys out of the pram when it doesn't provide a perfect experience, but where's the fun in that?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Wysardry]

If you roll a die, then roll again if you don't get a 6, probability of rolling a 6 is 1/6 + 1/6 * 5/6, or 11/36, all in all a larger chance. If you roll a die n times, re-rolling unless you get a 6, your probability is a sum of 1/6*(5/6)^i, where i goes from 1 to n. Your chance to, over a number of rolls, never get a six once will never become zero, but it will become ALMOST zero.

Those calculations are for the chances of rolling a 6 in a series of rolls. The odds are still 1 in 6 for individual rolls, which is analogous to chance to hit figures.

 

[Zombra]

different question then: from success rate standpoint, do you see a difference in allowing to reload each roll once vs dev allowing you to roll a die twice and choosing better result?

Depends on whether the test is pass/fail. If it's pass/fail, the two cases have identical odds. If success is a spectrum, then the second case (the ability to choose between two results) is more advantageous, since in the first case you may get a less-than-maximum success on your first roll, choose to reroll, then get a complete failure on the second roll and be stuck with that.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Black Angel]

Anatidaephobia

A person suffering from this condition feels that somewhere in the world, a duck or a goose is watching him/her

Yeah, right

 

[Zombra]

I do see your point but arent rolls with results outside of pass/fail rare? Sure there are crits but I hose to believe people are not reloading/rolling to get those...

Random encounter tables. Treasure generation. Hit locations. Damage spectrum. This is off the top of my head.