Remove puzzles, add autocombat and make the game easier

[badhabit]

A far better option would be to add a hardcore perma-death option similar to old-school mode: when activated dead characters can not be revived plus when the whole party dies it's savegames get deleted too.

The original SSI GoldBox games had this. During the game the party could suffer casualties, and if without the ability to raise the dead, they had to haul the bodies back to town to a church. However certain monsters had high powered spells like 'Disintegrate', and anyone killed by that didn't have a corpse to haul back to town.

In LoG2 (or mods in LoG1) this could be done; such that any PC that was outright destroyed, could not be revived. It is already the case in mods that NPCs can join, and fill the ranks, so, if the game was made with that in mind, then PCs that were destroyed, could be replaced in town or in the field by joinable NPCs.

Also Dungeon Master had a similar game mechanic. When a character died, all his inventory & and worn equippment dropped to ground. The character's (heavy) skeleton could be brought by the remaining party to an altar of vi for ressurrection. Complete destruction of characters by enemies was not possible in DM (but I think you can lose the skeleton to unrecoverable places). So there was a strong motivation for he player to care for individual party characters to prevent the annoyance of picking up the equipment, travelling back (pretty far) and setting up the character again with the equipment.

Healing was not possible by an altar of vi, so dying because of starvation or thirst is possible in DM.

[Dr.Disaster]

So there was a strong motivation for he player to care for individual party characters to prevent the annoyance of picking up the equipment, travelling back (pretty far) and setting up the character again with the equipment.

I agree that there was/is no motivation to let characters die but that's the same with any dungeon crawler. Due to this people get better in the game while playing it.

In DM it might is the correct RPG approach to grab all the droped stuff (or at least the bones), run back to an altar, revive and re-equip characters but it's also a pointless waste of playtime. Can't recall that i ever did it beside the very first time a character died. "Quit Game" and "Load game" was and still is way faster then going for the altar of vi.

If you really want to enforce such a routine you have to prevent people from saving and loading anywhere they like but that won't be very popular.

[Isaac]

If you really want to enforce such a routine you have to prevent people from saving and loading anywhere they like but that won't be very popular.

Personally, I'm a fan of hard-ball mechanics like this; but I say ignore that the player can reload, because they will reload for anything at all... They will reload at a random loot drop, or if you add breakable lock picks, any time they break one or run out. To make it reload proof would impose a hassle on all players that may be reloading simply because they needed to, or wanted to ~for whatever reason.

Bard's Tale also had the run back to town if they're dead aspect... once I had to do that while several levels down, and while out of magic and torches, and the dungeon was solid black every step of the way [solid].

Diablo did restrict saves such that to Save meant to Quit; I'd be fine with that, but honestly... I think that kind of option [for the mass market these days] needs to be part of the
'old school mode', or an additional 'Ironman mode'; (and probably an unlock-able achievement).

[badhabit]

If you really want to enforce such a routine you have to prevent people from saving and loading anywhere they like but that won't be very popular.

Personally, I'm a fan of hard-ball mechanics like this; but I say ignore that the player can reload, because they will reload for anything at all... They will reload at a random loot drop, or if you add breakable lock picks, any time they break one or run out. To make it reload proof would impose a hassle on all players that may be reloading simply because they needed to, or wanted to ~for whatever reason.

Bard's Tale also had the run back to town if they're dead aspect... once I had to do that while several levels down, and while out of magic and torches, and the dungeon was solid black every step of the way [solid].

Diablo did restrict saves such that to Save meant to Quit; I'd be fine with that, but honestly... I think that kind of option [for the mass market these days] needs to be part of the
'old school mode', or an additional 'Ironman mode'; (and probably an unlock-able achievement).

I like rogue-like hard mechanics too. About saving, forced-autosave (on exit) and only one save slot are a way of allowing saving (everywhere) while enforcing that the player's choices and actions matters and have consequences ... like it is done in the recent games
"FTL" or in "Sword of the Stars: the pit"... Such a semi-ironman mode I would prefere. (Real ironman mode would be no resurrection at all)

[Isaac]

I like rogue-like hard mechanics too. About saving, forced-autosave (on exit) and only one save slot are a way of allowing saving (everywhere) while enforcing that the player's choices and actions matters and have consequences ... like it is done in the recent games
"FTL" or in "Sword of the Stars: the pit"... Such a semi-ironman mode I would prefere. (Real ironman mode would be no resurrection at all)

I like A.D.O.M.'s trick with the save games; it CRC checks them when they [attempt] to load, and also it deletes them if the PC dies.

(Of course it is still possible to trick it to load an earlier save if one is determined.)