/vr/ - Retro Games

I play Ironman Diablo 1. Once you enter the labyrinth, you don't come out.

I do this with Doom (vanilla and otherwise) all the time. I've beaten E1-E3 countless times (and doom 2 at least a few). E4 is a bit of a different story sometimes though. E4M2 is usually the deciding factor. Make it through that and you're golden unless you get careless.

X-COM is a great game to Ironman.

You'll actually find yourself aborting missions if you take too many casualties and don't think you can win.

Sometimes, it's a great way to 'just fucking play the game' instead of getting stuck with the thought of making a grand playthrough one day. I occassionally fire up Hexen and play as long as I feel like.

>>2263737
I play SRPGs that way, especially Fire Emblem games. Combine with a 0% growths patch and aim for a low turncount for an even better experience.

>>2263737
It's something I'd love to aspire to, but can't because of time and lack of natural talent. Maybe when retirement comes (assuming people still can retire by that time).

SaGa Frontier and Romancing SaGa 3 are great candidates for this.

>>2263737
Totally depends on the context of the game.
If the game is really hard or really long then I usually won't.
But if the game s really easy or really short I probably will.

I usually do it with shit like Megaman X but I have done it with Demon's Crest.

>>2263885
this, a million times this
perfectionism makes every victory feel hollow

>>2264025
>SaGa Frontier
This is probably murder even if you do know what you're doing. Mostly depends on the character though.

>>2263737
All the time

mostly just crpgs, and that pretty much comes down to simply not scum saving in the end.

>>2264565
Actually, Ironman rules in roguelikes usually means you can't go back up in dungeon levels, or back to the town if one exists. It's keep going down or nothing.

I'm pretty sure that's where the term first started being used in the context of videogames, too, so it's kinda interesting that OP's definition (which is what most people mean when they say it) is actually not ironman but in fact default roguelike behavior.

>>2264892
Honestly roguelikes are overrated as fuck.
If you really want to "game" the system you can just keep resetting until you spawn right next to some useful gear. At which point you might as well just cheat and save yourself the bother of resetting over and over.

>>2264920
The hardly applies to all roguelikes (a lot of them start you in a town or somewhere no good gear is going to spawn) and isn't what this thread is about anyway. No one said anything about whether roguelikes are good or bad.

>>2264935
I know, just letting off my chest.
There's a fad for indie roguelike-likes these days and I find the genre extremely overrated.

>>2264920
you're playin some shitty rougelikes, by the time gear gets good in the first place you don't wanna die for "better" loot you rather just kill more shit to find better loot. saves time.

>>2264920
In my experience, getting good gear super early means the game is going to send stronger monsters at you before you're ready.

Dungeon Crawl is like that. YAY CRYSTAL DRAGON PLATE MAIL! Oh fuck, ogre on level 2.

Some forums do ironman competitions of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.

This is how I play anyway.

>>2265229
What games/genres would you say are best suited to this style?

>>2263737
I can't even imagine doing this with Duke3D. I keep dying at the start of level 3 when you have to bust your way out of jail, and I'm only on the second difficulty level.

>>2263885
>Sometimes, it's a great way to 'just fucking play the game' instead of getting stuck with the thought of making a grand playthrough one day.

I have no idea what you mean by this. I always 'just fire up the game and play'. Is there another way to do it?

>>2264938
>playing roguelikelikelikelikes
you brought your suffering upon yourself

>>2265406
If the game is fairly long it starts to feel like an investment and I start thinking about whether I want to go through with it or not. It's easy to start procrastinating about it.

>>2265447
Ah, I guess I get that feeling. Come to think of it, that's probably why I mostly play multiplayer games.

I generally play Baldur's Gate with no reloads. Makes the game so much better if you don't constantly reload because you have to actually plan for things instead of clicking a few buttons if you fail a save or die.

>>2265406
>play Doom
>clear room of monsters
>eh, I could have done that with slightly less ammo and taken a little less damage
>reload and try again
>eh, I could have done that with slightly less ammo and taken a little less damage
>reload and try again
>eh, I could have done that with slightly less ammo and taken a little less damage
>reload and try again
>eh, I could have done that with slightly less ammo and taken a little less damage
>reload and try again
>eh, I could have done that with slightly less ammo and taken a little less damage
>reload and try again

15 hours later you've got a perfectly fine no damage fists-only run for the first two and a half stages

>>2263737
This is hilarious to read because to me that's just how I've always played video games. Reloading and using save states kills all the fun from the tension.

>>2264892
In a well designed Roguelike, going up a floor will do nothing but screw you over more.

>>2264920
>If you really want to "game" the system you can just keep resetting until you spawn right next to some useful gear.

You've either never really played them or never played decent ones. That's not a good strategy at all. Whenever you try to game the RNG in a roguelike you'll just run into more and more frustration.

It's certainly not a genre for everyone though.

>>2265642
There have always been people who played games like this and I've always felt pity for them.

>>2263737
Depends on the game but I usually do it for replays of games.

For games like Alpha Centauri and some RPGs like Baldurs Gate or Fallout I usually only have one save file per character. If I mess up, then I usually play it through with amusing results

>>2264920
>Honestly roguelikes are overrated as fuck.
>There's a fad for indie roguelike-likes these days and I find the genre extremely overrated.

What happened is that Roguelikes are a very old and very niche genre. They've always been niche because they're both graphically unimpressive and punishingly difficult. But the people who love them REALLY love them and speak vocally about how great they think they are.

So what happens is that it creates a rather large well of people who want to experience that feeling as well, but for whom the traditional style of a roguelike is too much for them. So that's where we get into all these rouguelike-toughlikes Dungeons of Dredmor for example which is overall pretty frustratingly simple for seasoned roguelike players, but appeals quite a bit to people new to the genre.

If I have to continue in a shooter, I quit, but otherwise, hell no. Especially in RPGs. Ironman Fallout? I don't think I've ever even played through that without either a nightkin or the master critically hitting me for 200+ damage at least once.

>>2265725
>In a well designed Roguelike, going up a floor will do nothing but screw you over more.
For the 'bands, it's really the inability to go up to the town level that makes ironman a challenge. Although arguably all 'bands have design issues in the first place.

>>2263885
Feel the same way

>hmmm, I could have beaten that encounter without using those potions, better reload
>hmmm, I could have saved a repair hammer if I had waited until I got to town, better reload
>hmmm, I should have taken the other guy's quest for the exp reward, better reload
>hmmm, I should have, etc

Ironmanning hurts the perfectionist in me, but it makes the games a lot more enjoyable by forcing you to just accept your mistakes and keep playing.

>>2265917
What I was referring to is that (in my opinion anyway) in a well designed Roguelike there's no reason you would even want to move up a floor until you're making your way back out of the dungeon (if it's one of those). Returning to a higher level won't help you because no new resources are going to appear and ultimately you'd just be wasting time on your food clock. The joy of Rouguelikes is that you can't grind or dawdle, only push forward. Even though moving forward means almost certain doom, staying put or going back is even more worse for you.

Roguelikes teach you to keep going despite the odds seeming to be all against you which is very counter-intuitive to the way many people approach games these days. They also teach you not to horde useful items. It might not seem like the perfect opportunity to use that potion of invulnerability, because there's a good chance you won't get another. But trying to save it for later may well get you killed.

I play almost every game with some kind of restriction on saving, although mostly it just amounts to not saving in between levels. For games I'm good at, like Doom or Quake, I'll play without saves or deaths. In Diablo 2, I'll make a hardcore character and restrict visits to town and backtracking to the bare minimum.

I recently made an exception for the original Tomb Raider, however, which combined a requirement for a brutal amount of precision with a slow pace. I saved dozens of times.

>>2263740
I've been working on this recently and it turns a usually easy game surprisingly brutal. Not being able to restock on potions or get books from Adria is killer unless you're a rogue.

Yeah I've tried to do this with Thief Gold a few times, so far I've always ended up dying at some unfortunate spot, so it'll be cool if I ever pull it off.

>>2263885
>>2264036

Exactly. I fucked up my first half life run by always quicksaving / quickloading until I finish every encounter perfectly, never needing any health items. I still do it on every game with quicksaving, it sucks.

>>2263737
Only games I've Ironman'd are Doom 2 and Link To The Past.

And I've beaten only one roguelike, Doom RL

>>2267973
jc-beaten?

>>2266359
I've never been able to finish, but I've managed to bring a Sorceror to Hell a few times. It's neat how it brings out some of the game's features. Your character's skill suddenly isn't meaningless.

>>2266491
>>2265918
>>2263885
It took me a while to break this habit, and I had to first realize that I was ruining games for myself and making them a chore.

Half-Life 1 & 2, interestingly, play pretty well with the built-in autosaves. They were clearly chosen at checkpoint-type moments. Sometimes you get a bad save with low health though, so I keep a backup.

But yeah, fighting this problem is the same thing that led me to play Doom levels from a pistol start. No hoarding resources, just do your best to fight to the end and survive using everything you've got. For really long community wads I will allow myself a checkpoint save every 15 minutes or so.

>>2268361
As someone who grew up with games before things like quicksaves existed it's always kind of saddened me the way so many players basically destroy the experience of the game they're hoping to experience.

>>2265721
You start over from the beginning of the game if you die in Doom or an RPG? Keep in mind ironman rules mostly apply to PC games with one life and built in save states, it's not talking about playing Mario in an emulator.

>in a well designed Roguelike there's no reason you would even want to move up a floor until you're making your way back out of the dungeon
You must think most roguelikes (including pretty much every /vr/ one) are badly designed then. If Angband is wrong, I don't want to be right.

>>2265961
Is it true?
Never played roguelikes but now kinda interested.
Not really sure if true, however.

>>2269521
It is mostly true for a game like Brogue, which is not a bad roguelike to start with.

It's pretty much not true for something like Angband. Nethack is sorta in the middle. Some (Rogue, DoomRL, Infra Arcana) don't let you run upstairs anyway, so you can't grind even in theory.

>>2269521
Not him, but in my opinion that's a pretty good description of Roguelikes. Like the guy above pointed out, there are some where going up and down in floors is useful, but the general essence of what makes a Roguelike fun is that tension and always pushing forward despite the odds.

If you want to try one, I would recommend POWDER as a good place to start. It's fairly simple as the genre goes, a little more like Rogue was than the big Roguelikes, but still highly complex compared to most other games. It will give you a good taste of what makes them so good and if you like it there's plenty of places to branch out.

>>2264920

what roguelike have you played where thats a viable strategy? i cant think of any ive played like that.

>>2263737
so you mean playing a game how it's meant to be played rather than cheating? If you think of this as being an "ironman" than I really have lost all hope for people here.

I play Fire Emblem with Iron Man rules

If a character dies then they were clearly to weak for my army Not that I ever lose anybody

>IronMan'ing Silver Surfer
Bring it on.

>>2273301
Quality reading comprehension there

>>2263805
>E4M2

>>2263805
E4M2 and E4M6 are the only maps in Doom 1 I can't beat from a pistol start without saving at least once.

E4M2 is just generally hard and I end up fucking up at some point, and E4M6 has the awkwardly placed cyberdemon at the very end that makes it way too easy to catch a rocket in the face and ruin your run, plus all the dips in the nukage you have to do before that.

>>2266482
Not /vr/, but I play a bit of Hitman the same way, one death and it's restart the game. Suddenly you feel you don't want to leave your guns behind that easily.