FF Gameplay Difficulty Level Poll

[CharlesX]

Taking the whole, most, or those you know of, published FF gamebooks (that is including Sorcery!, Clash Of The Princes and Blood Of The Zombies) what are your own feelings on their difficulty level? For example, are you satisfied and happy with the numbers and rolls required, or do you dislike them or even feel angry (about them)?
   This is effectively a criticism\feed-back poll about FF. One which implies a bit more emphasis on the more prolific-style authors such as Steve & Ian, and say J. Green.
   Voting closes 9 p.m. 29 January.

[nathanh]

I went through Champskees's solutions matrix and scored success probabilities as Low/Medium/High for each book for Sk 9 St 18 Lu 9 and Sk 10 St 18 Lu 10 characters (or similar for special books). Results were:

9/18/9:
Low 53%
Medium 15%
High 32%

10/18/10:
Low 38%
Medium 24%
High 39%

This looks pretty good to be honest. If you remove the 15% of the books where you have a low chance to succeed even with best stats, you'd have a healthy looking picture.

[CharlesX]

Jan 22, 2022 18:46:03 GMT nathanh said:

I went through Champskees's solutions matrix and scored success probabilities as Low/Medium/High for each book for Sk 9 St 18 Lu 9 and Sk 10 St 18 Lu 10 characters (or similar for special books). Results were:

9/18/9:
Low 53%
Medium 15%
High 32%

10/18/10:
Low 38%
Medium 24%
High 39%

This looks pretty good to be honest. If you remove the 15% of the books where you have a low chance to succeed even with best stats, you'd have a healthy looking picture.

Interesting. What is your definition of low, medium and high though (as in, what % range chance of success)?

[bloodbeasthandler]

Something to consider - in my opinion difficulty is not merely the mathematically-calculated percentage chance of a character with average stats winning through on the 'perfect path', but also the route itself.
I mean choices made randomly which are essential for the win.
Example: you are given the choice of turning left or right at the beginning of a quest. You are given no clues. Turning left will set you on a path where you are able to pick up an essential item. Turning right means you miss that chance and effectively condemns you to defeat later on. Straight away it's a fifty-fifty chance of failure.

[johnbrawn1972]

Jan 22, 2022 19:27:16 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Something to consider - in my opinion difficulty is not merely the mathematically-calculated percentage chance of a character with average stats winning through on the 'perfect path', but also the route itself.
I mean choices made randomly which are essential for the win.
Example: you are given the choice of turning left or right at the beginning of a quest. You are given no clues. Turning left will set you on a path where you are able to pick up an essential item. Turning right means you miss that chance and effectively condemns you to defeat later on. Straight away it's a fifty-fifty chance of failure.

I think this takes us into an old argument about avatar knowledge being reset after every play but knowledge about the book is aggregative and can be systematized(stupid American spelling)

I suppose you can walk straight into the pit trap at the beginning of Warlock but I doubt the majority here would want to realize(stupid American spelling) that possibility for your avatar.

The solutions are helpful in they help you to take advantage but you can set off to your doom if you so wish.

Every book can be considered lethal if you decide to miss essential items.

Using the solutions and a bit of mathematics seems helpful in this instance.

The problem seems to be you have The Forest of Doom and Starship Traveller and also Crypt of the Sorcerer and Spellbreaker at the other end of the Spectrum so an element of generalization(stupid American spelling) is inevitable.

[nathanh]

Jan 22, 2022 18:55:56 GMT CharlesX said:

Jan 22, 2022 18:46:03 GMT nathanh said:

I went through Champskees's solutions matrix and scored success probabilities as Low/Medium/High for each book for Sk 9 St 18 Lu 9 and Sk 10 St 18 Lu 10 characters (or similar for special books). Results were:

9/18/9:
Low 53%
Medium 15%
High 32%

10/18/10:
Low 38%
Medium 24%
High 39%

This looks pretty good to be honest. If you remove the 15% of the books where you have a low chance to succeed even with best stats, you'd have a healthy looking picture.

Interesting. What is your definition of low, medium and high though (as in, what % range chance of success)?

I was moving quickly through a large number of tables, so I wasn't being rigorous. Anything <25% would go into Low, anything above 70% would go in high, anything between 40-60% would go in medium. Classification of the remaining cases prioritised speed over consistency, so could go either way. Probably 0-30, 30-70, 70+ is about what I will have ended up with.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 22, 2022 19:44:12 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

I think this takes us into an old argument about avatar knowledge being reset after every play but knowledge about the book is aggregative and can be systematized(stupid American spelling)

I suppose you can walk straight into the pit trap at the beginning of Warlock but I doubt the majority here would want to realize(stupid American spelling) that possibility for your avatar.

The solutions are helpful in they help you to take advantage but you can set off to your doom if you so wish.

Every book can be considered lethal if you decide to miss essential items.

Using the solutions and a bit of mathematics seems helpful in this instance.

The problem seems to be you have The Forest of Doom and Starship Traveller and also Crypt of the Sorcerer and Spellbreaker at the other end of the Spectrum so an element of generalization(stupid American spelling) is inevitable.

Starship Traveller might be a good example of what I am on about. 
That maze. 
The left/right choices and the step out into nothingness to succeed ... 

How do you rate that in terms of difficulty? 

Once memorised of course it's difficulty level zero, but then so is every chess problem that ever got compiled. 

Forest of Doom is another one. Indeed you can win with a weak character, but you still need to make the right 'toss of a coin' choice to go left or right, to find the parts of the hammer and the potion of levitation etc. 

I think I rate a book's difficulty by how many 'reads' of it you are likely to need to win through to victory in the end (whilst playing by the rules).
How many 'reads' would an honest and thoughtful player (who maps and takes notes) need to finish a given book?
No faked max stats, no fudging rolls, no five-fingered bookmarks, no 'save points'. 

In this respect FF books are monstrously hard. 

Your thoughts? 

[johnbrawn1972]

Jan 22, 2022 20:43:37 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 22, 2022 19:44:12 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

I think this takes us into an old argument about avatar knowledge being reset after every play but knowledge about the book is aggregative and can be systematized(stupid American spelling)

I suppose you can walk straight into the pit trap at the beginning of Warlock but I doubt the majority here would want to realize(stupid American spelling) that possibility for your avatar.

The solutions are helpful in they help you to take advantage but you can set off to your doom if you so wish.

Every book can be considered lethal if you decide to miss essential items.

Using the solutions and a bit of mathematics seems helpful in this instance.

The problem seems to be you have The Forest of Doom and Starship Traveller and also Crypt of the Sorcerer and Spellbreaker at the other end of the Spectrum so an element of generalization(stupid American spelling) is inevitable.

Starship Traveller might be a good example of what I am on about. 
That maze. 
The left/right choices and the step out into nothingness to succeed ... 

How do you rate that in terms of difficulty? 

Once memorised of course it's difficulty level zero, but then so is every chess problem that ever got compiled. 

Forest of Doom is another one. Indeed you can win with a weak character, but you still need to make the right 'toss of a coin' choice to go left or right, to find the parts of the hammer and the potion of levitation etc. 

I think I rate a book's difficulty by how many 'reads' of it you are likely to need to win through to victory in the end (whilst playing by the rules).
How many 'reads' would an honest and thoughtful player (who maps and takes notes) need to finish a given book?
No faked max stats, no fudging rolls, no five-fingered bookmarks, no 'save points'. 

In this respect FF books are monstrously hard. 

Your thoughts? 

You seem to be conflating subjective and objective criteria.

You can crack most books in an afternoon but they may take some refining especially if you can use a mathematical system to help you.

Another difficulty you seem to be referring to is more subjective namely how much time and effort does it take to refine a system and my own efforts with Night of the Necromancer seems helpful here. The solutions bifurcated my solution into two systems. One more direct with a low skill and one more circumspect with a high skill. It was difficult for me to see this without the help of mathematics. I did not realize(stupid!) taking advantage of a slightly difficult skill roll was mathematically advantageous to my armored(stupid!) to the teeth alternative.

The two ideas you seem to be talking about are firstly how long does it take you to break into and conquer a book. Secondly how likely it is you can beat a book with certain mathematically understood criteria. Only the second seems to have been systematized(stupid!).

Has anybody created a thread as to how long it took you to crack a book? One idea would be Creature where I was left baffled as to what to do next.

[bloodbeasthandler]

I am rating a book's difficulty by both the chances of picking the right choices PLUS the mathematical probabilities of winning fights or making rolls against stats etc.

johnbrawn, you have probably got a very good memory and have played through and remember the correct path for most [all?] of the books.

When the next book comes out play it 100% by the rules and see how many failures you have before you win. Tally them.

As an experiment take Creature of Havoc. Imagine you have never played it before. [Also imagine that the secret passage bug at the dead end is fixed]

Roll up stats and get reading. When you are given choices where there are no clues as to where to go, roll a dice or flip a coin to see what to choose. How many failures before you win? Try the same with Trial of Champions. 

Edit: and my question about the maze in Starship Traveller. Explain to me how difficult or easy that is. How would you quantify the difficulty?

[johnbrawn1972]

Jan 22, 2022 22:09:40 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

I am rating a book's difficulty by both the chances of picking the right choices PLUS the mathematical probabilities of winning fights or making rolls against stats etc.

johnbrawn, you have probably got a very good memory and have played through and remember the correct path for most [all?] of the books.

When the next book comes out play it 100% by the rules and see how many failures you have before you win. Tally them.

As an experiment take Creature of Havoc. Imagine you have never played it before. [Also imagine that the secret passage bug at the dead end is fixed]

Roll up stats and get reading. When you are given choices where there are no clues as to where to go, roll a dice or flip a coin to see what to choose. How many failures before you win? Try the same with Trial of Champions. 

Edit: and my question about the maze in Starship Traveller. Explain to me how difficult or easy that is. How would you quantify the difficulty?

Again I seem to be almost repeating myself as this is subjective and objective.

I am not sure of the point of conflating the avatar who is refreshed after every play and the knowledge we gain which is aggregative and can be systematized(stupid!).

I mentioned this some time ago. My favorite(stupid!) example is The Citadel of Chaos where every time the avatar needs to learn of the combination lock from the library yet we know this a classic trait of the book itself.

I think this project should be completed once by someone with excellent coding skill and it should be applied to The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The route is  well known and yet there are multiple routes to your doom as well. If you wish to explore the probabilities of every conceivable choice apparent in a book then the number must be astronomical hence it has to be done by coding. To code one book is a daunting task so I suggest it as a possible project for the most well known book. To achieve this for all books would be a task that would test Hercules and Job to the limit.

I am trying to be consistent here where I have said many times you can take the solutions and make of them what you will. They are a free resource and you can create a project if you so wish. Personally I am not at all sure I wish to conflate the subjective and objective dimensions of how to complete a book. I always play by the rules whereby an avatar is refreshed each time and is essentially a tabula rasa as specified in the preamble to paragraph one. My subjective solutions tried to take advantage of the book often starting from a parsimonious base. This reaped rewards with Night of the Necromancer and Stormslayer respectively where they were then developed into a system. I then take advantage of these systems.

[tyrion]

I think difficulty needs defining clearly. For example, I find painting difficult. I'm not very good at it, but with patience and practice, I have got better and eventually (hopefully) will not find it difficult.

Rolling dice is not difficult. No matter how many times I play crypt, chasms or masks, I do not get any better at it, despite knowing the 'one true path'. Dice have no memory.

Therefore, the difficulty comes from finding the true path, or if there is variability (moonrunner and necromancer), then understanding which is the best path with the stats you have rolled or random bonuses you gain. Each book is a unique puzzle, and the difficulty stems from how hard that puzzle is.

Don't forget that the books stress the importance of making a map and using it on future adventures, so some aspects of meta knowledge are already expected (though not to the extent that you know the password next time without finding it again). Like any puzzle, you use previous knowledge to get further next time, just like in su doku when you rub out guesses that you made previously.

A book that has nothing but skill 12 opponents but no meaningful choices is not hard, just tiresome. A book that has hidden references, difficult moral choices and subtle clues but little combat (or against skill 4 opponents) is hard.

[kieran]

Jan 22, 2022 22:50:58 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

If you wish to explore the probabilities of every conceivable choice apparent in a book then the number must be astronomical hence it has to be done by coding.

You could code the truly random choices (like should I go left or right would be a straight 50/50) but ones where you have to exercise judgement are harder to quantify. For instance, I think a player is more likely to part on friendly terms with the Bonekeeper rather than attack him but I really couldn't put a number to how much more likely.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 23, 2022 0:06:20 GMT kieran said:

You could code the truly random choices (like should I go left or right would be a straight 50/50) but ones where you have to exercise judgement are harder to quantify. For instance, I think a player is more likely to part on friendly terms with the Bonekeeper rather than attack him but I really couldn't put a number to how much more likely.

That's it Kieran.
The uninformed 50/50 [or worse odds] choices are mainly what I am talking about. 
The more there are of these choices which have to be made on a purely random basis, the more difficult the book. [Edit: Of course when you make a bad choice in one playthrough you'll know better for the next one and make the right choice this time.]

The difficulty of a gamebook cannot be merely boiled down to the dice rolling aspects - the fights, the Test your lucks and rolls against skill etc.

Whether or not this 'difficulty' can be measured or quantified by coding and then turned into a percentage is not the point [for me at least!] 

edit: Crimson Tide is not only hard in terms of the dice rolling and stats requirements, but also in terms of the need to choose the one true path in amongst so much choice. 

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 22, 2022 23:30:15 GMT tyrion said:

A book that has nothing but skill 12 opponents but no meaningful choices is not hard, just tiresome.

I agree with it being tiresome. And unfair, and untested and annoying etc
Difficult though? Id say yes it's more difficult because playing by the rules you are going to end up failing and going back to the start a lot more. 

Jan 22, 2022 23:30:15 GMT tyrion said:

A book that has hidden references, difficult moral choices and subtle clues but little combat (or against skill 4 opponents) is hard.

Yes, well put. This is impossible to measure and turn into a percentage though. You just get a gut feeling about how hard the book is. 

[nathanh]

I ignored the "difficulty to solve" aspect in my thinking because I consider it to be a fundamental part of the quality of the gamebook rather than something we can easily separate off into a standalone consideration. If we wanted to include that into the assessment, I'd first have to use my records of number of failures before success for each gamebook, and then weight that somehow according to the probability of success given successful route known. And then I'd have to do the same with multiple people's records, because there will be too much variance in my own. Since I haven't completed more than about half of the gamebooks and I don't have access to anyone else's records, I don't think I'm going to try to work out what theoretical calculation I might do for this.

There's a final element which is puzzle difficulty, but apart from Tower of Destruction I don't think there is much difficulty here to worry about.

[sylas]

I find most of the hard ones tough but doable, and I always like a challenge. It's the comparatively 'impossible' ones I tend to avoid more.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 23, 2022 12:12:56 GMT nathanh said:

... I'd first have to use my records of number of failures before success for each gamebook,...

Do you have those statistics to hand?
Were you following a guide/solution or just playing the books normally?

Jan 23, 2022 12:12:56 GMT nathanh said:

...Since I haven't completed more than about half of the gamebooks ...

If I read you correctly there are many books you have not even read yet? Is that right?
Then I would say you are well-placed in the future to assess how difficult the books are.

(It's no good me playing through them because I know by heart the paths through most of them, I've read and re-read the lot)

[a moderator]

Jan 23, 2022 8:34:25 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

The uninformed 50/50 [or worse odds] choices are mainly what I am talking about. 
The more there are of these choices which have to be made on a purely random basis, the more difficult the book. [Edit: Of course when you make a bad choice in one playthrough you'll know better for the next one and make the right choice this time.]

That depends on how immediately obvious it is that a wrong choice is wrong.

One afternoon back in the mid-1980s I 'GMed' multiple attempts at Trial of Champions by a school friend - I read out the text, he made the decisions.

His strategy following each failure was 'do the same as before for every decision except the last one I made', so he never repeated any immediately fatal mistake. However, the first time he reached the dungeon, he went the wrong way at the first junction. And he continued to take the wrong turning on every subsequent attempt until we ran out of time, because it's not until very close to the end of the book that survival depends upon having an item found on the path he kept avoiding, and he kept finding other ways of getting killed before he got far enough to learn that he'd missed an essential pick-up by going left instead of right early on.

[johnbrawn1972]

Jan 23, 2022 17:28:42 GMT a moderator said:

Jan 23, 2022 8:34:25 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

The uninformed 50/50 [or worse odds] choices are mainly what I am talking about. 
The more there are of these choices which have to be made on a purely random basis, the more difficult the book. [Edit: Of course when you make a bad choice in one playthrough you'll know better for the next one and make the right choice this time.]

That depends on how immediately obvious it is that a wrong choice is wrong.

One afternoon back in the mid-1980s I 'GMed' multiple attempts at Trial of Champions by a school friend - I read out the text, he made the decisions.

His strategy following each failure was 'do the same as before for every decision except the last one I made', so he never repeated any immediately fatal mistake. However, the first time he reached the dungeon, he went the wrong way at the first junction. And he continued to take the wrong turning on every subsequent attempt until we ran out of time, because it's not until very close to the end of the book that survival depends upon having an item found on the path he kept avoiding, and he kept finding other ways of getting killed before he got far enough to learn that he'd missed an essential pick-up by going left instead of right early on.

This is why I said what I said and the probabilities generated would be astronomical hence just trying one book to see if they could be generated in a system.

[petch]

I find it quite hard to comment on the series as a whole, as it varies pretty dramatically from book to book.

Some of the ones that are easier to solve with good decision making and average stats are fun to replay to try different routes to victory or to try to win with lower stats - Stephen Hand or US Steve Jackson's stuff are good examples of this.

Some of the ones that are difficult to crack because the path to victory is so intricate can be fun because they're like a puzzle to be solved using meta-knowledge from previous playthroughs - Paul Mason and UK Steve Jackson are particularly good at this.

Some of the ones that are so hard because they rely on astronomically unlikely dice rolls to win - most Livingstone, early Green - can be good to read but not to play unless you implement your own house rules to counteract their gross unfairness (my method of choice: rolling one die, and if the result looks unfavourable using the other die to knock it to a hopefully kinder result - but even that isn't much help for Crypt of the Sorcerer or Spellbreaker).

Most of the books fall somewhere between these extremes.

In summary: I don't know.

[nathanh]

Jan 23, 2022 16:52:39 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 23, 2022 12:12:56 GMT nathanh said:

... I'd first have to use my records of number of failures before success for each gamebook,...

Do you have those statistics to hand?
Were you following a guide/solution or just playing the books normally?

I'll collect what I have. I wasn't following a guide and hadn't explored any of the books outside playing them when I was recording. However, I lost enthusiasm for playing this way (I came across some very difficult books) and so I have started exploring them without playing just to enjoy them. Therefore unfortunately I can't continue this exercise scientifically because I now know a lot about most of the books just from idly reading them.

Jan 23, 2022 16:52:39 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 23, 2022 12:12:56 GMT nathanh said:

...Since I haven't completed more than about half of the gamebooks ...

If I read you correctly there are many books you have not even read yet? Is that right?
Then I would say you are well-placed in the future to assess how difficult the books are.

(It's no good me playing through them because I know by heart the paths through most of them, I've read and re-read the lot)

I have played 53 gamebooks and won 23.

[nathanh]

Here are the results from the books I won:

Book	Failures	Notes
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain	1
The Citadel of Chaos	10
The Forest of Doom	3
City of Thieves	5
Deathtrap Dungeon	19	Plus a lot of deaths I didn't track once I knew the optimal route
Island of the Lizard King	1
Scorpion Swamp	0
Talisman of Death	2
Creature of Havoc	29
Midnight Rogue	3
Stealer of Souls	1
Vault of the Vampire	5	Pretty sure I missed a lot of deaths to the MINOR THINGY
The Keep of the Lich-Lord	0
Moonrunner	3
Night Dragon	2
Spellbreaker	4	And hundreds of deaths by simulation
Legend of Zagor	4
Stormslayer	13
Night of the Necromancer	2
Eye of the Dragon	9	I treated some skill bonuses as AS bonuses
Howl of the Werewolf	8
The Shamutanti Hills	4
Caverns of the Snow Witch	5	My notes say I won but I don't believe it

Here are the partial results from the books I did not win:

Book	Failures	Notes
House of Hell	5
Space Assassin	not logged
Seas of Blood	8
Appointment with F.E.A.R.	1
Rebel Planet	1
Demons of the Deep	3
Sword of the Samurai	9
Trial of Champions	23
Robot Commando	1
Masks of Mayhem	4
Beneath Nightmare Castle	3
Crypt of the Sorcerer	8
Battleblade Warrior	not logged
Slaves of the Abyss	not logged
Sky Lord	1
Daggers of Darkness	not logged
Armies of Death	unplayed
Dead of Night	3
Master of Chaos	2
Black Vein Prophecy	6
Legend of the Shadow Warriors	7
Spectral Stalkers	2
Tower of Destruction	2
Return to Firetop Mountain	4
Island of the Undead	5
Curse of the Mummy	1
Bloodbones	21
Khare - Cityport of Traps	1
The Crown of Kings	not logged
Assassins of Allansia	3

From the successes, it looks like Creature is the only book where I have a huge number of failures relative to the objective difficulty of the book. There isn't much to read into the uncompleted ones I don't think.

[dragonwarrior8]

Jan 23, 2022 19:37:11 GMT petch said:

(my method of choice: rolling one die, and if the result looks unfavourable using the other die to knock it to a hopefully kinder result - but even that isn't much help for Crypt of the Sorcerer or Spellbreaker).

This is ingenious. After all, it doesnt say you have to roll two dice at the same time. It would also add a layer of strategy. "Hmm, should I try to knock over that 4 in hopes of something better but possibly making things worse?". And you would have to actually be physically coordinated enough to hit the die! Truly Skilled as it were. Id probably end up with dice flying all over the room.  

Im through the first 30 books along with Sorcery and Clash of the Princes and below are the attempts each have taken me to beat:


1 The Warlock of Firetop Mountain 4

2 The Citadel of Chaos                  8

3 The Forest of Doom                   3

4 Starship Traveller                     17

5 City of Thieves                          8

6 Deathtrap Dungeon                 28

7 Island of the Lizard King          16

8 Scorpion Swamp                       3

9 Caverns of the Snow Witch      27

10 House of Hell                        18

11 Talisman of Death                 12

12 Space Assassin                     16

13 Freeway Fighter                    10

14 Temple of Terror                    23

15 The Rings of Kether                 8

16 Seas of Blood                        37

17 Appointment with F.E.A.R.        9

18 Rebel Planet                          26

19 Demons of the Deep                3

20 Sword of the Samurai            15

21 Trial of Champions                 35

22 Robot Commando                    7

23 Masks of Mayhem                  47

24 Creature of Havoc                  52

25 Beneath Nightmare Castle       12

26 Crypt of the Sorcerer             GAHHHHH!

27 Star Strider                            14

28 Phantoms of Fear                    18

29 Midnight Rogue                        4

30 Chasms of Malice                    58

Sorcery

1 The Shamutanti Hills                  6

2 Kharé - Cityport of Traps           10

3 The Seven Serpents                  11

4 The Crown of Kings                   17

Clash of the Princes

1 The Warlock's Way                    21

2 The Warrior's Way                     23



My biggest takeaway from this so far is that the books I spent the most attempts on with 50+, Creature of Havoc, Crypt of the Sorcerer (admitting defeat after 60 attempts) and Chasms of Malice, include the one in the very top spot in my rankings so far (Creature) and the two in my very bottom two spots (Chasms and Crypt, the latter because its totally broken).

Therefore while I cant see myself personally ranking the easier books too highly (barring something else extraordinary going on in them) because the challenge level and thus the thrill of victory isnt there, a really difficult gamebook can be either a great thing or an awful thing depending upon why its difficult. But that's obviously not anything new from what others have been saying here.   

[petch]

I genuinely admire the dedication it must have taken to record all those failed attempts! Interesting reading, too.

I read through all of the books sequentially a couple of years back, and wish I'd have kept my own records to compare. Mind you, I did cheat and fudge rolls fairly liberally when I realised how tough some of them were, so my own playthroughs probably aren't fair comparisons. 

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 26, 2022 1:21:41 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Im through the first 30 books along with Sorcery and Clash of the Princes and below are the attempts each have taken me to beat:

Thanks for taking the time to upload this.
Trying to remember how hard the books were to complete back when I first got them, yes, those are the sorts of failure rates I was expecting to see.
One step off the 'true path' and you are doomed to failure even if you don't realise it til much later.
This is part of the difficulty. 

[CharlesX]

Jan 26, 2022 19:02:32 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Jan 26, 2022 1:21:41 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Im through the first 30 books along with Sorcery and Clash of the Princes and below are the attempts each have taken me to beat:

Thanks for taking the time to upload this.
Trying to remember how hard the books were to complete back when I first got them, yes, those are the sorts of failure rates I was expecting to see.
One step off the 'true path' and you are doomed to failure even if you don't realise it til much later.
This is part of the difficulty. 

For me, playing a gamebook is about choice, having an adventure, so I prefer the more non-linear, sandbox-like gamebook with more variety. If you're playing a book where it's designed to be non-linear, why make it true path\linear? This sort of thing drove me from FF to CYOA, where, younger audience or not, you wouldn't spend an hour getting to the end before being killed out-of-the-blue for not making the right 25 50-50 choices earlier (or often, worse than 50 50, because they're illogical).
  Could you imagine a 340 reference CYOA like Starship Traveller? Imho as bad as any of Livingstone's recent works, chiefly from it's seriously below-average design.

[CharlesX]

We're fairly even split (those who voted) between those of us who think FF has the difficulty about right, and those of us who think it's too hard. I suggest this is because of a few authors and gamebooks with too many do-or-die rolls, and several broken FFs. For the slim majority who voted the difficulty about right, there are a minority of FF that are 'easy', and a majority can be completed with average starting stats.
   There are several thing this simplistic poll doesn't take into account, one is learning the path or truer path, as others have mentioned. Some FF have alternate routes of completion. Jackson has been stronger on balancing difficulty than Livingstone, obviously, and I feel this poll wouldn't be so split if it weren't for Livingstone's traits.
   I don't know how others feel, but I feel annoyed when an Avatar  - one a long way into the game - is killed by a 50 50 roll, or a 'roll 3 times don't get doubles', or 2 different 1 strike combats. I would say perhaps they put more effort into the description and world-building, but Livingstone is a bare-bones writer, and Sharp tends to emphasize the 'game' part of gamebooks. Green is talented, even if you dislike him (like Martin).
   It reminds me of the slightly proud quote on the first few FFs, 'you can succeed whatever your starting stats', which was dropped when J & L realised that wasn't really the direction they wanted to go in. I like COC and FOD but an entire series of them would be awful!

[sylas]

Jan 30, 2022 21:15:57 GMT CharlesX said:

We're fairly even split (those who voted) between those of us who think FF has the difficulty about right, and those of us who think it's too hard. I suggest this is because of a few authors and gamebooks with too many do-or-die rolls, and several broken FFs. For the slim majority who voted the difficulty about right, there are a minority of FF that are 'easy', and a majority can be completed with average starting stats.
   There are several thing this simplistic poll doesn't take into account, one is learning the path or truer path, as others have mentioned. Some FF have alternate routes of completion. Jackson has been stronger on balancing difficulty than Livingstone, obviously, and I feel this poll wouldn't be so split if it weren't for Livingstone's traits.
   I don't know how others feel, but I feel annoyed when an Avatar  - one a long way into the game - is killed by a 50 50 roll, or a 'roll 3 times don't get doubles', or 2 different 1 strike combats. I would say perhaps they put more effort into the description and world-building, but Livingstone is a bare-bones writer, and Sharp tends to emphasize the 'game' part of gamebooks. Green is talented, even if you dislike him (like Martin).
   It reminds me of the slightly proud quote on the first few FFs, 'you can succeed whatever your starting stats', which was dropped when J & L realised that wasn't really the direction they wanted to go in. I like COC and FOD but an entire series of them would be awful!

The 'you can succeed whatever your starting stats' expectation should've just been removed, simple as. It rarely applies. 

Other than the 'roll this or die' incidents, there are also a few books that leaves your avatar doomed from paragraph 1 if you happen to make the wrong choice (such as Crypt of the Sorcerer and Armies of Death). Another 50/50 situation that has no indication of which choice you should make.

[terrysalt]

In their defence, it says the one true way involves a minimum of risk and any player, no matter how weak on initial rolls, should be able to get through fairly easy. If you make a wrong turn that costs you the game, you weren't on the one true path.
The claim was still complete nonsense but you can't hold the possibility of the player making a wrong decision against the accuracy of it.

[DrManhttan71]

It would be difficult to do but you just need to combine the mathematical odds of fights and other dice tests vs all available character stat values and then multiply that by the total decision tree of every possible path taking all choices completely randomly.