Game News Druidstone goes full deterministic

[Black Angel]

We don't need less dice, we need more.

from superb pyrkon commercial:

So that's where the dices touched you when you were just a wee lad, huh?

 

[Durandal]

The biggest reason why under a near-deterministic system combat encounters can be reduced to puzzles with correct solutions, is because in most cases the player is given complete information about the enemy, their stats, the spells they are casting, their gear, and perhaps their behavior as well if you figure out how to exploit the AI. Of course it's trivial to form a perfect strategy if you have all the necessary information, something that's inherently not possible in a card game or in an RTS where both parties will usually send scouting units to gather more information about the others' movements and act based on a guess from the information you received. Meanwhile a puzzle will always provide all the necessary information so it's solvable, else it wouldn't be fair.

I think pro-deterministic RPGs ought to look at hidden or unreliable information as a means to generate uncertainty and counteract perfect solutions, much like randomly generated dungeons in a roguelike, where you're expected to anticipate and prepare against potential threats without knowing 100% that you will encounter said threats. The player could gain an insight for the inner workings of the system, but the variables governing them need to be deduced first if you don't want to make aimless guesses. This would obviously make tools or spell that gather information absolutely essential, so there would have to be some kind of trade-off to using the Search spell to prevent it from becoming a dominant strategy--there's no point to having choices if not using one all the time is suicide. At the same time, the enemy could purposefully spread misinformation (disguises, fake stats) to throw you off in this regard (and so could you).

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[The Great ThunThun*]

 

[Dr Schultz]

The biggest reason why under a near-deterministic system combat encounters can be reduced to puzzles with correct solutions, is because in most cases the player is given complete information about the enemy, their stats, the spells they are casting, their gear, and perhaps their behavior as well if you figure out how to exploit the AI. Of course it's trivial to form a perfect strategy if you have all the necessary information, something that's inherently not possible in a card game or in an RTS where both parties will usually send scouting units to gather more information about the others' movements and act based on a guess from the information you received. Meanwhile a puzzle will always provide all the necessary information so it's solvable, else it wouldn't be fair.

I think pro-deterministic RPGs ought to look at hidden or unreliable information as a means to generate uncertainty and counteract perfect solutions, much like randomly generated dungeons in a roguelike, where you're expected to anticipate and prepare against potential threats without knowing 100% that you will encounter said threats. The player could gain an insight for the inner workings of the system, but the variables governing them need to be deduced first if you don't want to make aimless guesses. This would obviously make tools or spell that gather information absolutely essential, so there would have to be some kind of trade-off to using the Search spell to prevent it from becoming a dominant strategy--there's no point to having choices if not using one all the time is suicide. At the same time, the enemy could purposefully spread misinformation (disguises, fake stats) to throw you off in this regard (and so could you).

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I gotta be honest: this is the first reasonable post I've read in this forum about the never ending war between determinists and randomists.
Usually all boils down to a series of misinterpreted quotes of van Moltke ("no plan survives first contact with the enemy" quickly became the motto of the randomists here, except the Prussian commander wasn't talking about the role of sheer luck in battle, but about the role of incomplete information); partial or utterly wrong definitions of what is an RPG, a tactical or a puzzle game, and a long list of flaws (real or imagined) present in the games of the enemy.

Well done, my friend. Well done....

 

[FeelTheRads]

I think pro-deterministic RPGs ought to look at hidden or unreliable information as a means to generate uncertainty and counteract perfect solutions,

That won't work for determinism fags, because then they'd complain about not having the correct information to make informed choices. Which in turn of course means that the game is cheating on them if they lose it's not their fault.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

So, essentially, you deterministic folk want Commandos, but with fog of war and dialogue? Can dialogue exist mechanically in a deterministic game?

 

[Sacred82]

lolwut

switiching from heavily procedurally generated to heavily deterministic during production

They're apparently trying to make Torment's project management look good.


tbh I never had much faith in the vision, they should have stayed with something blobber-y for at least one more game. Obviously the reason why the whole concept of the game stayed rather nebulous is that they don't have a fucking clue what it is they want from this game.

 

[Infinitron]

lolwut

switiching from heavily procedurally generated to heavily deterministic during production

They're apparently trying to make Torment's project management look good.


tbh I never had much faith in the vision, they should have stayed with something blobber-y for at least one more game. Obviously the reason why the whole concept of the game stayed rather nebulous is that they don't have a fucking clue what it is they want from this game.

They switched a long time ago, during what you could probably call preproduction: https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10839

 

[Durandal]

So, essentially, you deterministic folk want Commandos, but with fog of war and dialogue? Can dialogue exist mechanically in a deterministic game?

It can if you add an ability tree for a Psychology skill.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Determinism is better for strategy games--especially real-time. Determinism in a turn-based games can quickly become glorified puzzles without a human opponent or superb AI.

RPGs are better of with statistical systems because RPGs are simulations of approximate ability in uncertain scenarios. While they don't provide the soothing comfort of a known outcome, they provide the thrill of chance and the unknown. As I will often say, the problem with many dice systems is that they are linear. These systems are going to have major scaling problems either on their high or low ends, and sometimes both. They need to become more quadratic. We don't need less dice, we need more. For example, instead of 1d20, roll 3d6.

Here is an excellent read from a guy that made a tool I use extensively.

https://anydice.com/articles/three-basic-distributions/

From point of view of mathematical education it's not a particularly good read, I am sorry. What he's describing is not three different distributions, but an example of central limit theorem (for uniformly distributed random variable(s), in this case).

With 2 min googling, I found something like http://trivialhit.com/2017/07/31/dice-math-iii-summing-dice/ which sums it up (pun unintended) quite nicely, what comes to dice pools.

 

[Sacred82]

lolwut

switiching from heavily procedurally generated to heavily deterministic during production

They're apparently trying to make Torment's project management look good.


tbh I never had much faith in the vision, they should have stayed with something blobber-y for at least one more game. Obviously the reason why the whole concept of the game stayed rather nebulous is that they don't have a fucking clue what it is they want from this game.

They switched a long time ago, during what you could probably call preproduction: https://rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10839

yes, I remember that they claimed to have gone through different "stages"

but as if that transition wasn't dubious enough in itself, Druidstone's selling point in the beginning was procedural generation, and the whole thing was sold as a roguelite.

Then they made it sound like they're basically producing a regular party based RPG. Now it could be that but also some SRPG thing.

calling it now that this will fall into the "buy during a sale. Maybe." category

 

[samuraigaiden]

calling it now that this will fall into the "buy during a sale. Maybe." category

Grimrock 1 & 2 are very good at what they do. I'm inclined to give it a chance.

 

[thesheeep]

Ugh, I just hope this doesn't turn into a "puzzle with fancy effects" like Into The Breach.
I get some removal of randomized elements if there is a really good reason, but puzzles just bore me to death, even if they are dressed up nicely.
So them now "marketing" combat as "mini-puzzles" is a gigantic boner killer.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Puzzle combat usually are good in the first time, but ultimately kills replayability

 

[BEvers]

Puzzle combat usually are good in the first time, but ultimately kills replayability

Deterministic and RNG driven games aren't inherently different in terms of replayability. On a replay you should be able to pick different characters, abilities, equipment and consumables to beat battles in a different way, and maybe in a different order.