I can think of many useful applications for a system of temporary items, or items that change/disappear after a certain number of turns. I don't know how other roguelikes deal with this, but in Dredmor I'd like to see it work the follow way. On floor 1 a Fresh steak is spawned, in 300 turns, it will become raw steak, in 300 more, it becomes aged steak. I'd also like to see items like this: A spell effect spawns the item "Burning-Fuse dynamite" in 5 turns, the item is deleted and the spell effect "Dynamite explosion" is cast. It would also make possible items like "Cursed blinking blade", every 15 turns, the target (carrier of the blade) will randomly blink somewhere. So for a system like this to work the way I would want, there would be a need to keep track of how long an item's been on the ground, a way to trigger the item changing into another item after a certain number of turns or deleting/casting a spell effect.
Now see this would be amazing for some kind of "going SUPER DUPER rogue" difficulty. Just immagine if all items you just spotted had a timer on them before they either despawn or degrade, forcing you to propperly rescource manage like in all the "real" Roguelikes*. Although in retrospect the pocket dimensions kinda ruin that idea unless they're somehow restricted. Which then again they'd have to be if a super hard difficulty was ever added, which isn't going to happen eitherway. -Also a more aggresive AI. ...one can only dream! Incidently I really like the idea and it'd add a lot to both the game and the modding community. Just too bad it's a tad late to add something like that but thumbs up and all that none the less.
What do you mean by this? There are no roguelikes to my knowledge with decaying gear on a timer in them at all. I've never seen any roguelike ever, from Nethack, to Omega, the hardest Roguelike ever, to Adom have that. The only game I can think of is Dwarf Fortress, and I don't know if that is a feature of it or not. The only other games where items despawn on a timer is Diablo II, Sacred 1 and Sacred 2, and a few others. Those are not really roguelikes. And yes, Omega, makes Dwarf Fortress look easy. Possibly only 4 people beat it in 20 years.
Dwarf Fortress IS easy. You can obtain the objective of the game by merely neglecting to find a food source, though that is considered by many a cheap way out.
I don't think dying is a good way of determining if you won or not. But fair enough. I can't figure out Dwarf Fortress, because I don't have a degree in Quantum Engineering.
Yes it is, since meals rot and worned clothes wear over time. Food can be stored in barrels to prevent rotting, and the only way to prevent sock-cluttered fortresses is to destroy the broken clothes.
Ah. I wasn't certain. I guess if he considers Dwarf Fortress to be a real roguelike, he's going to be disappointed to realize that it's the only roguelike that has decay like that.
DF is a roguelike as like as Warcraft 3 is a RPG. It took features from the genre, but usually you don't build dungeons in a roguelike.
Yay, give us even more items to keep track of! I spend enough time on inventory management already :/ Also, do you want the items to stack even if they have different timers remaining? Then you wouldn't know how long you still have to eat your steak, and I don't think Dredmor tracks every single in a stack atm, see enchanting ammo and then adding more to the pile.
