Current Events > Rogue lite/likes are cancer

(+) Yeah! (+)

So many games with good core combat and mechanics are ruined by repetitive shitty level either to compensate for the lack of actual man made, hand crafted level design or prolonging 2 hours content into 20+ hours game via the rouge mechanics.

---

I just want an upgrade system that gives me some sense of progress and better oddsas I go. Rogue Legacy hadmy favorite formula.

---

that is how i feel.

you get a pretty cool sense of accomplishment when you finally reach the end of the game in terms of level design but at the same time you still think "i wish there was more", only for it to revert back to the beginning and have you go through the whole thing again but with extra modifiers.

hades was cool since it gave you progression every time you met a character again but it's still an excuse to run through the same levels again and again. if only they took out of halt the time spent recording dialogue and designed more levels instead.

---

Actual roguelikes are great
The trash rng sims suck
---

AsucaHayashi posted...

the same levels again and again.

this is tbh is the main problem. maybe there are exception to this, but in the end, the levels usually are just randomly shuffled room template + randomly shuffled set of enemies encounter and they just call it a day and call it "design"

one of the worst example is this game called star renegades. it's turn based RPG thing with rogue like element. the core combat is fun, but the way the rouge mechanics is used is just so repetitive, basically each "level" is comprised of regular enemies, mini-bosses and big bad bosses.

the regular enemy and mini bosses are shuffled with this mordor like "nemesis system" that barely does anything anyway, but they are usually piss easy and the big bosses are the same each time. these big bosses act as a wall so you can replay the randomly shuffled encounter over and over again so you can beat the end level bosses after 10 hours i just said "nope" fuck this.

they give you some new characters and some upgrades after each run, but that's it.

---

I loathe them. I understand why they exist, I just don't like them. Well, for the most part. A few are decent. Like darkest dungeon.

---

apolloooo posted...

So many games with good core combat and mechanics are ruined by repetitive shitty level either to compensate for the lack of actual man made, hand crafted level desig

This is procedural generation and it's a lazy cancer in video games. Inevitably everything looks exactly the fucking same, but SOMETIMES THERE'S A FILTER OVER IT!

No Man's Sky is actually the worst offender to that I've ever seen.

---

steveoSEK posted...

I loathe them. I understand why they exist, I just don't like them. Well, for the most part. A few are decent. Like darkest dungeon.

yup. some are decent. into the breach works ok i guess but the best one i played are just decent game. seriously hand crafted levels and encounters still trump the fuck out of RNG sim shit

---

template for action roguelite games:

1. make maybe a dozen room layout or so
2. make maybe a dozen enemies
3. shuffle shuffle
4. say there are over 100+ combinations of procedurically generated levels!! buy our game! we are too lazy to actually do design work!

rogue lite is the new fucking cancer of videogame, this time it invades the indie scene.

---

HADES HADES HADES

(caps)
---

They're fun for casually jumping into a dungeon but I don't have the patience to see any through to the end.


---

I completely agree. I can't tell you how many games I've seen that looked cool as fuck until they mention "procedurally generated, rogue like death mechanics"

Nothing puts me off more than rogue like death mechanics

I'm blanking on the actual term for that btw

---

roguelinks interest me as much as your dick does

---

that's an interesting thing to say

---

They're my favorite sub-genres next to survival.

Some of my favorite titles;
Caves of Qud
Tales of Maj'Eyal
Risk of Rain 2
Remnant: From the Ashes - Survival Mode
Everspace
Alien: Isolation - Survivor Mode
Mothergunship
Convoy
Below
Overland
For The King
Genesis Alpha One
Hand of Fate 2

I agree that the market currently has an oversaturation problem with metroidvanias with rogue-like/lite elements, but I'd argue that the market is oversaturated with metroidvanias in general. The fact that so many devs have shoehorned these mechanics into their games has really hurt the perception of the genre (as evidenced by the fact that people believe rogue-like/lite means being procedurally generated when that has absolutely nothing to do with the definition of the genre).

---

Its a mixed bag imo. Some, like Into The Breach and FTL, are among my favorite games, period. Others, like BoI (version differences notwithstanding) or Enter The Gungeon are fantastic action games with relatively simple core mechanics (and extremely simple level layouts in Isaacs case especially) that are refined into an insanely addictive gameplay loop that gives the player some degree of meaningful progression. Its still heavily RNG-based, but almost any run can be viable even if not ideal.

Then theres bullshit like Spelunky or Spelunky 2. Some level one layouts in Spelunky 2 straight up just come with unavoidable arrow traps that take half of your health. The combat is pitiful, the hit boxes are fucked, you are absolutely not equipped to deal with the flying enemies in any way other than tediously kiting them until they slowly get low enough you can hit them. The resource economy is atrocious and the way items work just feels bad. If you want to regain health, its an escort mission that takes your item slot and prevents you from attacking normally.

I am so mad that collecting treasure is so satisfying, because I really do not like basically anything else about this series.


---

Lost_All_Senses posted...

I just want an upgrade system that gives me some sense of progress and better oddsas I go. Rogue Legacy hadmy favorite formula.

Hades has this, never played Rogue Legacy (I want to!) so I don't know how it handled it but from the sounds of it you'd probably like Hades

Roguelikes, like games of any genre, vary greatly in quality

---

Lost_All_Senses posted...

I just want an upgrade system that gives me some sense of progress and better oddsas I go. Rogue Legacy hadmy favorite formula.

All Roguelites (not likes) have permanent progression, that's what makes them "lites". Also like the other guy said, try Hades in that case

Ruddager posted...

All Roguelites (not likes) have permanent progression, that's what makes them "lites". Also like the other guy said, try Hades in that case

The little tools or modifiers you get doesn't change the fact you are doing the same shit over and over again

---

Joke post from a joke poster.

apolloooo posted...

The little tools or modifiers you get doesn't change the fact you are doing the same shit over and over again

Yeah, you aren't doing the same thing over and over in Slay the Spire, Gungeon, or Isaac. Hell, Hades is probably the worst about this and yet considered among the best in the genre.

The massive popularity of hades recently (and I played it a decent amount myself) has really solidified in my mind what parts of the genre I like and what parts of the genre I'm not a big fan of.

Short runs are nice, as well as starting from an initial item/power/etc layer of just the most absolute basics and growing stronger during that short run in different ways each time by picking up randomized stuff.

Not so good is games with a lot of metaprogression which ruins the feeling of having distinct runs. I think a lot of the fun in the genre is that the main thing improving is you, not your character.

tbh, hades flops on basically every single aspect of being a good roguelike and I disliked it a lot at first, but then I started thinking of it instead as an RPG with very long encounters and it's a lot better that way <_<

---

Binding of Isaac for life!

---

apolloooo posted...

The little tools or modifiers you get doesn't change the fact you are doing the same shit over and over again

so just like every video game in every genre?

---

thronedfire2 posted...

so just like every video game in every genre?

I feel like that's intentionally misunderstanding things <_<

you experience basically all the distinct content in a roguelite in a single run that's probably an hour long max. If there's multiple significant different characters I guess one run for each. but to really "complete" the game you're expected to do that run many many times

---

Agree.

---

kirbymuncher posted...

I feel like that's intentionally misunderstanding things <_<

you experience basically all the distinct content in a roguelite in a single run that's probably an hour long max. If there's multiple significant different characters I guess one run for each. but to really "complete" the game you're expected to do that run many many times

There's also variants like Children of Morta where you actually progress and unlock new maps, and once you finish the story you've actually finished the game. The roguelite structure is essentially more tied to how you progress within the maps. The genre is pretty wide at this point.

---

Calling devs lazy when you have zero idea how much work goes into a game is laughable IMO. Just say you dont like it and leave work ethic out of it.

---

Bad take

---

kirbymuncher posted...

I feel like that's intentionally misunderstanding things <_<

you experience basically all the distinct content in a roguelite in a single run that's probably an hour long max.

Lmao no you don't. What the fuck is this.

---

If Remilore ever gets cheap, give that a try. It's decently fun to play, and the alleged "permadeath" only really resets the current stage.

teepan95 posted...

HADES HADES HADES

If Hades is so great, why isn't it on cart yet?
As a general rule, "roguelike" means I'm only buying it physical, unless it's $2 or something. That way, I can resell it and cut my losses if I hate it, or I'm only out the price of an almost-pretentious coffee.

As far as PCG goes, it shouldn't be viewed as an alternative to hand-crafted design, but rather as a complement. There are some pretty damn interesting PCG things out there, and far from all of them result in entirely randomly generated maps.

---

To each their own but I agree, the genre sucks
---

I wouldn't say they're bad, TC, just that they're a fad currently.
The strongest of the genre (and this is true even of actual roguetypes) incorporate a lot of hand-crafted elements that may or may not show up on a given run(event encounters in games like FTL are a great example of this) or could occur at different places/depths/whatever. This helps provide the experience texture and structure, even if the space between these sections or events is procedurally-generated.

With that said, yeah, lots of designers DO use it as an excuse to be lazy and/or to justify bad/unclear/blatantly unfair mechanics.

What is the point of a topic like this if you're not going to cite any examples?

I'm pretty unfamiliar with the genre. Enter the Gungeon and Dead Cells are the only ones I've played. However, both are incredible games.

---

Stick to roguelites then. Hades and Children of Morta do a good job of upgrading your characters to do better with each run.

---

They can be good, but it seems a lot of modern developers simply use it as a crutch to avoid needing to develop more than the core mechanics of the game. There have been so many that Ive tried that would work so much better as a crafted experience.

As long as its like a $20 game its fine
---

nemu posted...

They can be good, but it seems a lot of modern developers simply use it as a crutch to avoid needing to develop more than the core mechanics of the game.

Decoupling "procedural" from "permadeath" could be an amazing thing, but there's a lot of reluctance to do so for some reason.

Tf is a roguelike.

---

thronedfire2 posted...

so just like every video game in every genre?

Don't do that.

---

Spooking posted...

Games like Binding of Issac are fantastic games since the levels are always different and the items you pick up are always different. No permanent upgrades either.

...and adding a "continue" option undoes all that?

scar the 1 posted...

There's also variants like Children of Morta where you actually progress and unlock new maps, and once you finish the story you've actually finished the game. The roguelite structure is essentially more tied to how you progress within the maps. The genre is pretty wide at this point.

Serious question since I haven't played that game: how is this not just a normal dungeon-based RPG

---

kirbymuncher posted...

Serious question since I haven't played that game: how is this not just a normal dungeon-based RPG

"procedural"

Tangledeep is another one to look at, if you dislike permadeath.

I love rougelikes. Once I'm proficient with the mechanics then i get to explore new strategies and learn new playstyles without getting too invested in a run.

Playing a different class in an rpg is a huge time investment, and you're unsure whether or not you'll like it until you're far into the game. I'd rather get a feel for the role with skills and abilities and enemies I'm already familiar with instead.

---

kirbymuncher posted...

Serious question since I haven't played that game: how is this not just a normal dungeon-based RPG

Yeah for one the dungeons are generated procedurally. They're also intended to be run through several times, with some quests progressing incrementally as you play the maps over and over. And there's the whole you go through it until you die, then you have to restart from the top, but in-between you can do typical roguelite stuff like metaprogression. The only difference from more "traditional" roguelites is that you progress to new biomes. But even that isn't so different, it's just presented in a more sequential way than, say, Hades or Dead Cells where you start from the bottom every single time.
It's a cute game though, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you play coop. It's not nearly as exciting playing alone.

---

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is one of the GOAT, period, though. It's accessible, humorous, has a great aesthetic and art style, and has borderline infinite replayability.

---