Game design, is it on purpose?

Community General Discussion
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So I’m on Level 8 of the upper spires this week, had a couple slow runs and made some mistakes but tis all good. I started to notice somthing though. Most the anima cells I get are from trash mobs. Why? It’s a nice supprise when it happens but anyway I digress.

What I really want to talk about is the argument of Torghast on a whole. People complain, people complain about the complainers, I complain about the complainers moaning about the complainers. I get it, so let us rephrase the issue.

Why don’t people like playing Torghast? Too hard? Too easy? Or somthing that holds a close relation to the rest of the game. A lacking sense of achivement. The inherent reason we play games is for the sense of achivement. We find it enjoyable. So why is it designed to be an easy game, where everyone can do everything, but the rewards are near to none existant. Would it not be better to have confirmed rewards for somthing that is much harder? Would it not be more pleasing to know you and your friends beat the dead mines after so very many tries? You did it because you wanted the sword, now you have the sword. The work has paid off and your efforts rewarded.

I get there will always be complainers but at least some people would have some fun. Why make a literal time gate to secure subscribers when you can make the challenge and effort put into the game worth playing it for.

All I know is, I just went though Torghast level 8 and I’m stopping on the first floor to say this. Because although I beat 8 elites and the end floor boss. I did it all with one anima and am faced with going to floor 2 with 2 cells. The game is too easy and the reward is too lacking. Give us a challenge and then reward us for our efforts.

Obligatory Note: Have elites drop anima cells.

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Because its RNG. people get a bad run with bad powers and they say its too hard.
people get a good run with great powers. they say its too easy.

the issue is they tried to make a rogue lite game.
but forgot its WoW.

most of the stuff there except some of the traps and a few of the mobs. got unavoidable damage etc.
which rogue-lites don’t do.
you can be the weakest you can and still made due in rogue lites.
they tried to basically make a combination.
thats the problem. trying to eat the cake and keep it whole.

get rid of unavoidable damage. make it so its everything skill based. and even bad runs will feel ok as long as you play right.
more mobs with telegraphed attacks. and the issue will be solved.

but blizzard can’t even solve some thing simple like. moving all the legendaries to the last bosses of a dungeon so people won’t ruin runs for people by trying to legendary snipe which WAS obvious that they would do.

so i think by the looks of it most of blizzard’s experienced veterans who know the game aren’t here anymore.
the only thing left is a shell of its former self full of interns and leadership that is disconnected from the players and the game at the same time.

Veterans in this industry should already know stuff like this would happen. and it takes them 2~3 expansions to finally listen to what people want. so yeah expect more of this. and more time gating.

instead of actually doing any thing of value to the player base/game.

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That’s good insight into the rouge like genre and its contrast to what wow is. I have to agree that it seems like the design point is flawed. Disconnection from user base, unfortunatly, is a huge issue in game design for everyone. This is what testing is for. Though could it not be fair to say we, the subscriber base, are the testers? At which point more discussion would be benificial.

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But… That would require thoughtful development. It’s easier to make it an easy grind with a timegate, right ?..

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Easier, though boring. It just occured to me, why do we play this game?

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Some of us don’t anymore :woman_shrugging:

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Honestly, I niether like nor hate torghast. I find it meh.

I do a couple of runs a week for soul ash and it is ok but I have no enthusiasm for it and other stuff takes priority.

It’s just meh.

I do however like that it is soloable so I can run it at my own pace and stop half way through to go make a cup of tea lol.

I don’t see why there couldn’t be more rewards from it, even another currency for gear or a spot in the vault just to make running it a bit more worthwhile.

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I fear you are asking too much on these forums if you want a logical, coherent, unbiased discussion.

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This guy/gal has the right attitude to Boreghast

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It’s about the RNG of it, and that some classes get worse powers overall, increasing the amount of RNG curve needed for a fast / successful run. Torghast is a 5/10 roguelike experience at best, because all the great roguelikes design the game in a way that with ultimate skill, it is beatable.

F.e. for Ret, if you get unlucky with damage anima powers (which HAS happened to me), and mostly get tanking / healing focused ones, you have no chance at clearing that run.

Take something like Synthetik for example, a top-view rogue like shooter. The game seems incredibly RNG at first with the loot and items you get that can either make you a demigod or a wet noodle, but as you get better at the game - learning the enemies, controlling your terror level, improving aim and positioning, managing heat, etc. - you realize that you can clear the ENTIRE game with nothing but your starter pistol.

Torghast doesn’t have an epiphany to reach, it’s pure RNG that also happens to influence your power progression. You either roll over everything or you die on floor 4.

Edit: Also, the great roguelikes make all the choices, regardless of their power level or type of power, fun and engaging in a way. In Synthetik, a DIVINE GLADIATOR is one of the most fun items out there due to the amount of powerful lead you can put into your enemies, but then you may pick up a simple Crossbow firing Tungsten arrows, you’ll still be decimating your enemies, but you have to put in a lot more thought to positioning, accurate shots, and your reload speed, whereas with the GLADIATOR, your positioning and movement tends to focus more on avoiding the shots of your enemies in the open while clowning them down.

You also get to tune both weapons to be great all-around weapons, or maybe you can put a greater focus on run’n’gun, etc. Even something so simple as an HE Grenade is a great item, especially if you upgrade it.

In Torghast, the Mawrat powers are… not great. Especially when you get the 2% stam increase at the very end of floor 5. Or when the final vendor is selling you powers that involve killing Mawrats, and out of all end bosses, I’m not aware of a single one that uses Mawrats as a mechanic.

Edit2: Just watch Sseth’s youtube review about it. Buy the game. It’s great.

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I think what a lot of people need to realise, is that something being challenging because you get screwed over by bad RNG on powers isn’t a good kind of challenging. Mage tower challenging is good challenging, being unable to do a boss because you got bad RNG on powers is not good challenging.

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Don’t know, mate.

Few days ago (maybe a week, I don’t recall), I made a suggestion to the community regarding the issue with multiboxers farming herbs.

My suggestion basically was: make it a mini game that cannot be played properly using command broadcasting to multibox.

The simplest (and boring) version of that mini game could have been similar to the captchas where you have to select all images containing a plane, for example. Since vignettes would have been located in different places, or since one instance of the mini game could have asked for planes, while another for dogs or buses, of course it wouldn’t be possible to broadcast it.

But, of course, I would have prefered a more interesting mini game. Something that makes sense regarding the type of gathering.

For example, if you gather herbs, the mini game could have been something that simulate the delicacy required to take specific parts of the plants, without destroying the parts or harming the plant.

Regarding mining, it could have been something that somehow involve refining the ore, removing the dirt, or something like that.

And of course… to compensate the increased difficulty and the fact it would then take more time to gather 1 node, each node would yield more materials.
It could even yield an amount of material proportional to how good you were, as a player, when completing the mini game.

Some players were very enthousiatic about the idea.
But guess what ? Some players literally told me: “no, I like that gathering is chill and doesn’t require involvement of my brain”.

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Idk about others, but to me it’s super boring. I only clear each wing once on layer 8 and then ignore it until next week.

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wow roguelike just plays way to slow. running throw 500km dungeons with 10km/h is boring. fighting trashmobs with 200k hp that give you nothing and got 1 mechanic while ever few seconds hit harder is not fun at all.

thorgast is just a huge waste of time. most anima is incredible boring and garbage, so far i onky found 2 animas on pala and 2 on shaman that are fun, rest might as well not exist.

so if you want to make it fun

  1. make more fun anima powers thats change spells to something ridiculous
  2. make more skill based stuff, fun traps etc.
  3. increase movement speed by 200% and make more dodgeable stuff.

doesnt help the case if the gatekeeper does every 10s critical shot for 30k which is not interuptable and everytime it hits harder until eventually it one taps you while you cannot even do anything against it

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I have smoke breaks on floor 3

Edit:
I’m starting to see that everyone seems to have a somewhat similar view point on this. So to improve the game over all, the answer is to involve more problem solving. Because as it was said, RNG is not a challenge, it’s gambling.

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I like Torghast - it’s a fun and different experience. I’m always curious what the next power might be. I do however play a petclass which significantly makes it easier. It’s not very fun on my trashcan fury warrior… That however is mostly a gearing issue. If people would get gear easier, Torghast would be doable for everyone. Now if you get stuck, you ask yourself - "hmm, I need more gear to do this, so where do I get said gear - - m+? Ehhm, no thanks, Alt+F4.

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