Which is why I favor changing difficulty around the player's performance - not their current level. As you've noted, it's too easy to screw that up. It seems to me, though, that it's really the player's *experience* of difficulty we want to manager, so if the player is currently getting slaughtered - spawn monsters with less hp, increase health drops, etc. If they're currently slaughtering the monsters, increase the strength / number of monsters, decrease the number of drops.
I never played Oblivion, but it sounds like their difficulty adjustments were poorly designed and under-tested (or just poorly designed and too expensive to change). Try playing Max Payne some time. It does auto-difficulty pretty damn well (though there are still selectable difficulty levels). If you're dying regularly, the enemies' aim worsens and their numbers decrease (to a point). If you're slaughtering them, they eventually become psychic sharpshooters and fly at you in droves. But it keeps adjusting constantly, by minute amounts. You almost never notice these changes, but they make the game more enjoyable by keeping the difficulty just challenging enough to give you a hard time - but not impossible.
Actually, I was homeschooled until 9th grade (it's a hell of a lot easier to get into college with an accredited transcript than from home - still doable, just harder). I feel it really gave me an advantage. I learned not only the 3 R's but how to think for myself at a relatively young age. So... good on ya, and good luck!
Yes. I think that makes the choice of my skill progression *mean* something When I choose to make my swordsman/mage, I realize that I'm going to have to make an important decision about how to spend my precious skill points. That makes the choice matter and gives the game more depth.
As another poster mentioned, the problem with allowing this sort of game play is that people tend to nerf their characters. This is another game design rant of mine, but I'm on a roll so... I don't like the way game difficulty is done in most games. I don't want to have to guess what my optimal game difficulty is, or want to have to adjust it back and forth. I play alot of games, so I'm only rarely unable to beat any given game, even on harder difficulty settings, but on those occasions when I do feel the need to ratchet the game back - why should I have to? Many games have had auto-difficulty adjustments built in to many of them for some time now. Is it really that difficult a concept? Especially for a game like Diablo?
When a player is nearly dead, ease up. If they're wading through foes like an angry god, throw bigger baddies and drop health/mana less often. Keep the challenge tailored to the player - don't make the player step out of the game and change the challenge.
This solves the character nerfing issue for single/coop play quite nicely. If you're a pvp player, I have no sympathy if your mutt character can't go toe-to-toe with a specialist. That's what I would expect to have happen. If, for instance, you've got a total of, say, 50 skill points, which you've divided equally into casting and swordsmanship, it should be no surprise that you're not as powerful with the sword as the guy who dropped all 50 into swordsmanship. Use your character's superior combat flexibility and hope for the best - that's what it's there for! If you're not able to do that, you probably need to rethink your character's abilities.
Besides, it'd be kind of interesting to see what'd happen after a while with a hybrid, given the insane amount of time people end up devoting to these sorts of games. What happens when you've got each skill tree maxed out? Should death affect your accumulated skills?
I think these sorts of mechanics would make for an incredibly deep RPG - MMO or not.
You know, this is a gripe I have with the whole Action/RPG genre as a whole. Why do we even have classes? Give me some skill trees and skill points. Let *me* decide how my character should play. If I want my character to wield a sword *and* cast magic missile, let me! More choices are always a good thing.
Well... In all fairness, you probably don't need a ranking algorithm if "How far away is it from home" is your major overriding concern. I suppose you could use Google maps, though, if you really needed the help. 8^)
I haven't used Eclipse in a few years, but I'm willing to give it another shot. Tell me, though, does it have the features (either natively or via a plugin) of the ReSharper Visual Studio plugin? I've been using ReSharper for awhile and it is so useful (the ability to quickly find a specific class by name is especially helpful) I can't believe how long I lived without it.
I used to do tech support for a webhosting company. One of the sites we hosted was for a local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and they were *regularly* forgetting their admin password and requesting that it be reset. After one month in which I had to reset their password 5 times, I decided to break slightly from the usual random alphanumeric password and sent them this: Noc2h5Oh. I never saw another reset request.
You want the Atari Video Keypad. You should be able to find it on ebay pretty easily. I have a local game shop that trades in every system they can get hold of, so I was able to buy mine there for around $4.
Exactly. While I'm happy about having this issue being brought into the public eye, I'm fairly nervous about the precedent this is setting. The FCC has no official authority over the internet. For them to suddenly try to exert some measure control is not a Good Thing.
These are, after all, the same people who license our TV/radio stations. Are we to anticipate a future "internet broadcast" license? Will we have to pay fines for indecency if we upload dirty pictures to our blog?
I was delighted to discover (quite by accident) that my car's stereo will play.ogg files. It's not advertised anywhere in the documentation for the machine (although other formats including.wma and.aaf are). I only found out that they were supported when I accidentally ripped a CD to.ogg instead of.mp3 and found that it still played.
Nope. The code ends at "A" The "start"/"select, start" bit is just where you're telling the game to start a 1 or 2 player game now that you've put in the damn code.
Wikipedia FTW!
That might not be enough. What if the drive heads themselves need polishing? What you need, my friend, is the special "diagnostics" disc my friends and I made in high school. By cleverly gluing a small strip of fine sandpaper onto the recording media, we were able to polish the imperfections out of several drives' read heads!
Since you're a fellow Slashdotter, I suppose I could part with it for $75 or so...;)
obviously somebody can't like or buy ANYTHING big/fast/cool these days without it being to make up for "inadequacies".
You ain't kidding. When I was 19 I bought an '80 Camaro. Black, fast and absolutely beautiful. The first time I took it to work, one of my female coworkers took one look and said "You poor thing. Is it *really* that small?" Not the reaction I had been hoping for...
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why I favor changing difficulty around the player's performance - not their current level. As you've noted, it's too easy to screw that up. It seems to me, though, that it's really the player's *experience* of difficulty we want to manager, so if the player is currently getting slaughtered - spawn monsters with less hp, increase health drops, etc. If they're currently slaughtering the monsters, increase the strength / number of monsters, decrease the number of drops.
I never played Oblivion, but it sounds like their difficulty adjustments were poorly designed and under-tested (or just poorly designed and too expensive to change). Try playing Max Payne some time. It does auto-difficulty pretty damn well (though there are still selectable difficulty levels). If you're dying regularly, the enemies' aim worsens and their numbers decrease (to a point). If you're slaughtering them, they eventually become psychic sharpshooters and fly at you in droves. But it keeps adjusting constantly, by minute amounts. You almost never notice these changes, but they make the game more enjoyable by keeping the difficulty just challenging enough to give you a hard time - but not impossible.
But at least it hasn't made you bitter. ;)
Actually, I was homeschooled until 9th grade (it's a hell of a lot easier to get into college with an accredited transcript than from home - still doable, just harder). I feel it really gave me an advantage. I learned not only the 3 R's but how to think for myself at a relatively young age. So... good on ya, and good luck!
Are you willing to be half as good at both?
Yes. I think that makes the choice of my skill progression *mean* something When I choose to make my swordsman/mage, I realize that I'm going to have to make an important decision about how to spend my precious skill points. That makes the choice matter and gives the game more depth.
As another poster mentioned, the problem with allowing this sort of game play is that people tend to nerf their characters. This is another game design rant of mine, but I'm on a roll so... I don't like the way game difficulty is done in most games. I don't want to have to guess what my optimal game difficulty is, or want to have to adjust it back and forth. I play alot of games, so I'm only rarely unable to beat any given game, even on harder difficulty settings, but on those occasions when I do feel the need to ratchet the game back - why should I have to? Many games have had auto-difficulty adjustments built in to many of them for some time now. Is it really that difficult a concept? Especially for a game like Diablo?
When a player is nearly dead, ease up. If they're wading through foes like an angry god, throw bigger baddies and drop health/mana less often. Keep the challenge tailored to the player - don't make the player step out of the game and change the challenge.
This solves the character nerfing issue for single/coop play quite nicely. If you're a pvp player, I have no sympathy if your mutt character can't go toe-to-toe with a specialist. That's what I would expect to have happen. If, for instance, you've got a total of, say, 50 skill points, which you've divided equally into casting and swordsmanship, it should be no surprise that you're not as powerful with the sword as the guy who dropped all 50 into swordsmanship. Use your character's superior combat flexibility and hope for the best - that's what it's there for! If you're not able to do that, you probably need to rethink your character's abilities.
Besides, it'd be kind of interesting to see what'd happen after a while with a hybrid, given the insane amount of time people end up devoting to these sorts of games. What happens when you've got each skill tree maxed out? Should death affect your accumulated skills?
I think these sorts of mechanics would make for an incredibly deep RPG - MMO or not.
You know, this is a gripe I have with the whole Action/RPG genre as a whole. Why do we even have classes? Give me some skill trees and skill points. Let *me* decide how my character should play. If I want my character to wield a sword *and* cast magic missile, let me! More choices are always a good thing.
Well... In all fairness, you probably don't need a ranking algorithm if "How far away is it from home" is your major overriding concern. I suppose you could use Google maps, though, if you really needed the help. 8^)
+1 Pity laugh
On the Forex front, MetaTrader4 works great under wine - after installing a couple of .dlls.
I haven't used Eclipse in a few years, but I'm willing to give it another shot. Tell me, though, does it have the features (either natively or via a plugin) of the ReSharper Visual Studio plugin? I've been using ReSharper for awhile and it is so useful (the ability to quickly find a specific class by name is especially helpful) I can't believe how long I lived without it.
There's this game, whose name I've forgotten, where you man a submarine
It's called SeaQuest. It was published by Activision and it holds up quite well. 8^) Classic.
"Conjugal Visit Prison", or "Pound Me In The Ass Prison"?
Depending on your perspective... Yes?
Sabotaging a network is no different than setting fire to the building.
B-b-but, but but, they they took my stapler. It's the - the red swingline model.
I used to do tech support for a webhosting company. One of the sites we hosted was for a local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and they were *regularly* forgetting their admin password and requesting that it be reset. After one month in which I had to reset their password 5 times, I decided to break slightly from the usual random alphanumeric password and sent them this: Noc2h5Oh. I never saw another reset request.
adapt or parish.
That's right! Change, or we're sending you to... church!
You want the Atari Video Keypad. You should be able to find it on ebay pretty easily. I have a local game shop that trades in every system they can get hold of, so I was able to buy mine there for around $4.
Exactly. While I'm happy about having this issue being brought into the public eye, I'm fairly nervous about the precedent this is setting. The FCC has no official authority over the internet. For them to suddenly try to exert some measure control is not a Good Thing.
These are, after all, the same people who license our TV/radio stations. Are we to anticipate a future "internet broadcast" license?
Will we have to pay fines for indecency if we upload dirty pictures to our blog?
The enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend.
...IANA Game Developer, but I'm willing to bet they've thought of that.
I have a *beautiful* 1980 Camaro which begs to differ.
I was delighted to discover (quite by accident) that my car's stereo will play .ogg files. It's not advertised anywhere in the documentation for the machine (although other formats including .wma and .aaf are). I only found out that they were supported when I accidentally ripped a CD to .ogg instead of .mp3 and found that it still played.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, select, start.
Nope. The code ends at "A" The "start"/"select, start" bit is just where you're telling the game to start a 1 or 2 player game now that you've put in the damn code. Wikipedia FTW!
rubbing alcohol (or, better yet, an electronics contact cleaner)
Don't use rubbing alcohol! That will also eat away at the contacts. Use either an electronic contact cleaner or hydrogen peroxide.
That might not be enough. What if the drive heads themselves need polishing? What you need, my friend, is the special "diagnostics" disc my friends and I made in high school. By cleverly gluing a small strip of fine sandpaper onto the recording media, we were able to polish the imperfections out of several drives' read heads!
;)
Since you're a fellow Slashdotter, I suppose I could part with it for $75 or so...
How do you think that line about the meek got in there?
[Patent] and copyright abuses need to go away
There, fixed that for ya'.
all we need is a cable channel called MTV to start playing music videos for the first time
How about YouTube?
obviously somebody can't like or buy ANYTHING big/fast/cool these days without it being to make up for "inadequacies".
You ain't kidding. When I was 19 I bought an '80 Camaro. Black, fast and absolutely beautiful. The first time I took it to work, one of my female coworkers took one look and said "You poor thing. Is it *really* that small?" Not the reaction I had been hoping for...