tome 4, frustrating

[jrodman]

Originally Posted by DaviddesJ

Doesn't TOME gives you complete information about every enemy, when you meet it? That's more data (or, at least, as much) as the Angband monster memory, or spoilers.

It's not complete, but it is a large portion of the information. The problem is it's difficult to read, both in terms of volume and presentation. It is probably sufficient for veterans. There's no hints for new players.

This combines poorly with the haphazard scattering of difficulty.

talking down to people.

Sure, but I didn't.
I just talked about the problems in the game.

[Philip]

I think Let's Play's are really useful in this respect. If you choose the right one, you can really see how experienced people play, with explanation as you go, even.

[fizzix]

I'm not sure why you are comparing tome4 to angband, they are very far apart in game design and philosophy. Tome did evolve from angband, but now it is almost unrecognizably different. You might get more explanations of why things were designed as they were if you post on the te4 forums.

[Derakon]

In fact I'm reasonably confident that ToME 4 shares no code with Angband at all -- DarkGod did a complete rewrite at some point.

[DaviddesJ]

I think that he's assuming that discussing TOME on the Angband forums is a way to focus on how the game looks to Angband players. That doesn't seem crazy to me. However, there's got to be a way to do it without describing everything he dislikes as "bad design".

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by Philip

I think Let's Play's are really useful in this respect. If you choose the right one, you can really see how experienced people play, with explanation as you go, even.

I like knowing how the game works so that I can figure out how to play, but I really, really don't like learning by seeing how other people play, or being taught "the right way" to play. I don't think I'm alone in that.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by DaviddesJ

I like knowing how the game works so that I can figure out how to play, but I really, really don't like learning by seeing how other people play, or being taught "the right way" to play. I don't think I'm alone in that.

I enjoy watching people play games that I don't have time to learn myself. That's sort of my motivation.

Another motivation is that when I cast a game, I get a lot of feedback and comments that help me improve, which is pretty cool.

[DaviddesJ]

Yeah, I'm totally not criticizing the idea or suggestion of watching other people play. I'm just saying that's not going to be to everyone's tastes. I may also be underestimating it, never having tried it. Are you talking about a video, or some other kind of replay? I'd be a lot more interested if I could go through someone else's game at my own pace, rather than having to watch a video. But that would require a system that records keystrokes and events and can replay them and pause at any point.

[Patashu]

Originally Posted by DaviddesJ

Yeah, I'm totally not criticizing the idea or suggestion of watching other people play. I'm just saying that's not going to be to everyone's tastes. I may also be underestimating it, never having tried it. Are you talking about a video, or some other kind of replay? I'd be a lot more interested if I could go through someone else's game at my own pace, rather than having to watch a video. But that would require a system that records keystrokes and events and can replay them and pause at any point.

Isn't this what a ttyrec is designed for?

[DaviddesJ]

Originally Posted by Patashu

Isn't this what a ttyrec is designed for?

That's better than video, probably, but not as good as a complete replay tool. The ideal tool (which I admit is probably more trouble than it's worth) would record the game actions, and allow a viewer to step through them as quickly or slowly as they like, and do other things like view the player inventory whenever they want. Can ttyrec even record multiple windows? If not, it's going to be pretty hard to follow what's in a player's inventory, for example, if you can only view it when the player actually did.