I need to save these reponses so I can just cut and paste every time this comes up. Death penalties encourage ultra-cautious play, which is boring. If I only play for 5 hours a week, and I loose all of that progress because I died one time, then I don't get to do a whole lot of exciting stuff with my time. Look at FFXI, people sit around in a "camp" and pull mobs into it one by one. It's a very safe way of getting experience and thus prevents people from delevelling while trying to, well, level. But it's ultimately very boring. The fact that I went out on a journey/quest alone and failed in that journey is a pretty big penalty given the time I have available. As a previous poster said, it all boils down to time. Punishing the player with having to grind out more stuff (exp, loot, cash) just further pushes some of the boring parts of the game onto the player more than they are already there.
You got a point about the "camp" thing. This is what made me quit EQ many times. But I think if the industry wanted, they'd come with a solution to have strong death penaltyes and not camping. Well,, just the quest grinding we have now would get rid of that.
Whats so great is that those who want a harsher penalty can ALWAYS create one very easily in any MMO. The fact that they never do IN-GAME speaks volumes. You can moan all you want on a forum, but if you don't follow up, you're just a hypocrite. Delete gold, delete gear, step away from the computer for a 1/2 hr. Theres plenty of penalties you can self inflict on yourself. Nothing is stopping you except yourself.
I am currently playing Civilisation, and on some difficulty levels it is really difficult to win. I know that after about 5 days thinking I am going to win I can still lose at the last minute due to a mistake or even bad luck. It is the fact that I know I can lose that makes winning so much more sweet.
20 years ago I used to play a Robotron clone on my C64 that has no save feature, and didn't even have a pause key. When I finally completed the game it took just over 2 hours of game time without any break at all. I still remember the elation I got from completing the game that lasted about a week.
When I had a Commodore Amiga I used to play Indy 500; the full race. If you made one mistake on one of the 800 left turns you would hit the wall and most times you were out of the race. I only won the race twice, but it was one of my favourite games.
Why is it that MMOs, and their players are so intent on the rush to max level that they cannot accept any set-backs. I've recently soloed a character in FFXI all the way to level 50. Why? Because it's a challenge.
Although I've tried playing permadeath in WoW with about 5 or so Alts it is almost impossible to get past level 30 without some bad luck chain of events that causes death. Still, IF I COULD I would happily chose myself to lose a level. Unfortunatley, games don't even have a mechanism to let you voluntarily lose EXP.
As far as I'm concerned it's much more exciting fighting a battle if you know that dying is going to hurt. I find it laughable that in most games dying is barely an inconvenience. I mean, why bother with HP at all. I am dismayed that so many people cannot see this. I mean, have they never struggled in a game to complete it and felt the thrill of eventual success. I am guessing that they must complete every game with a guide and move on to another game as soon as they stop winning.
BTW, I have still tried other different self imposed penalties. Such as dumping 1 item from my inventory or giving money away every time I die. I find this better than no penalty at all.
Finally some guy earlier said that death penalties make people over-cautious. This is only true when rushing to max-level. I get personal satisfaction knowing I attempted a challenge even if not one other player I play with knows that I took the difficult route through the game. It's got nothing to do with trying to appear hardcore or whatever, I just cannot stand a game where the ONLY challenge is finding the time to play it.
Whats so great is that those who want a harsher penalty can ALWAYS create one very easily in any MMO. The fact that they never do IN-GAME speaks volumes. You can moan all you want on a forum, but if you don't follow up, you're just a hypocrite. Delete gold, delete gear, step away from the computer for a 1/2 hr. Theres plenty of penalties you can self inflict on yourself. Nothing is stopping you except yourself.
HAHAHAH this is the absolute dumbest argument I've ever seen, and reminds me so much of what the NGE fanboys would spout at us when we complained about the complete removal of all death penalties in SWG... HAHAH.
Man... What a flashback I just had. That was literally word for word what the NGE lovers used to proclaim. hehe
Anyways, that is a really dumb argument because the game is not designed for such penalties. The games with no penalties usually have gear that takes a really long time to get, where as a game with gear loss as a penalty has gear that is fairly easy to replace. Stepping away from the computer would only hurt your team as the game was designed for you to get right back into the action.
You are also trying to push penalty without reward. Part of the reward of harsh death penalties is, for instance in a full loot game, you get to take the gear from the person you beat. You also can't make yourself lose exp or a level.
And no one wants to be inflicted with a harsh penalty when they know that no one else in the game has to deal with it.
Honestly though, that was funny, thanks for the laugh
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike Loved: Star Wars Galaxies Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
As far as I'm concerned it's much more exciting fighting a battle if you know that dying is going to hurt. I find it laughable that in most games dying is barely an inconvenience. I mean, why bother with HP at all. I am dismayed that so many people cannot see this. I mean, have they never struggled in a game to complete it and felt the thrill of eventual success. I am guessing that they must complete every game with a guide and move on to another game as soon as they stop winning. Finally some guy earlier said that death penalties make people over-cautious. This is only true when rushing to max-level. I get personal satisfaction knowing I attempted a challenge even if not one other player I play with knows that I took the difficult route through the game. It's got nothing to do with trying to appear hardcore or whatever, I just cannot stand a game where the ONLY challenge is finding the time to play it.
reson for death penalties is makes u more carefull.. like daoc death penalty was pretty harsh so when u pvped u picked ur targets better and sized up ur opposition .. where as in wow it was just a suiside fest kepp running into keeps til u finally cought them no stratigy just mass suisised.. u coulnt do that in daoc
The worst communities in MMOs I have seen are the ones with the worst death penalties.
In FF11 when a wipe would happen people would start arguing about whose fault it was. Fingers were pointed, insults were flung and the group would break apart. Also, a lot of times people would leave a group if they died just once, which would cause the group to either break up or spend time looking for a replacement. One of the reasons I quit FF11 is because someone got mad at someone else, purposely made a bad pull and killed all of us which caused me to delevel and half my armor was now unwearable.
The communities for PvP focused MMOs with harsh death penalties are even worse. In UO everyone was so paranoid and distrustful that is was impossible to just say "Hi" to random people.
Harsh death penalties do not evoke joy because of some sense of "risk vs reward". They only cause annoyance because the real thing you are losing is time which you can not get back. I do not feel like losing hours(and in some cases like FF11) weeks of my time because of other people are idiots or my internet crapped out.
Some people have forgotten that MMORPGs are video games and video games are meant to be fun, they are not meant to punish you at every turn.
lol u are right on the arguing though i remember wiping on tuskin glasure in daoc omg =D btw im very sorry about my spelling and grammer i know it blows
As far as I'm concerned it's much more exciting fighting a battle if you know that dying is going to hurt. I find it laughable that in most games dying is barely an inconvenience. I mean, why bother with HP at all. I am dismayed that so many people cannot see this. I mean, have they never struggled in a game to complete it and felt the thrill of eventual success. I am guessing that they must complete every game with a guide and move on to another game as soon as they stop winning. Finally some guy earlier said that death penalties make people over-cautious. This is only true when rushing to max-level. I get personal satisfaction knowing I attempted a challenge even if not one other player I play with knows that I took the difficult route through the game. It's got nothing to do with trying to appear hardcore or whatever, I just cannot stand a game where the ONLY challenge is finding the time to play it.
Well to answer the origonal OP post ill have to present 2 examples one without a harsh penalty and one with.
Without. [As in like WoW]
You enter a battle without hesitation and tap whatever buttons you need to fight you watch oponents stats to see how you are doing. You hope you will win but in the end it doesant matter as you wont lose anything if you lose this fight.
With. [As in like EvE]
You consider if you have a chance to win this battle and decide you have a fare chance so you fight him. You tap whatever buttons you need to fight him and you watch your stats and his incase you need to run, right now your heart is pounding as you know you can lose your ship and everything on it if you lose. You really hope you will win as although you can afford to lose your ship you would rather not.
So i guess the main difference between a game with a ahrsh penalty and one without a penalty is that you both become more considerate in where and with who you pick a fight with and when you actually fight your pulse is pounding because the losses if you lose are real. And they are real as your items you could lose took you real life time to save up for so they have real value.
Not everyone likes to actually care about there items in this way but for those that want meaningfull PvP rather than just random re-spawn PvP such penalties add so much to a game.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Maybe FFXI failed then, I don't know I haven't played it. It sounds like your problem is that you have yet to play a game that makes your heart race and your hands shake. Any win at the end is so much sweeter for it.
The depth and quality of any experience is equal to the difference between the lowest low and highest high, unless you have the mentality of a train spotter who gets "excited" about collecting another train id number.
Originally posted by Mylon I need to save these reponses so I can just cut and paste every time this comes up.Death penalties encourage ultra-cautious play, which is boring. If I only play for 5 hours a week, and I loose all of that progress because I died one time, then I don't get to do a whole lot of exciting stuff with my time.Look at FFXI, people sit around in a "camp" and pull mobs into it one by one. It's a very safe way of getting experience and thus prevents people from delevelling while trying to, well, level. But it's ultimately very boring.The fact that I went out on a journey/quest alone and failed in that journey is a pretty big penalty given the time I have available.As a previous poster said, it all boils down to time. Punishing the player with having to grind out more stuff (exp, loot, cash) just further pushes some of the boring parts of the game onto the player more than they are already there.
A harsh death penalty is an important component to making a quality game.
Without a harsh death penalty, no one fears dying and losing in combat which results in zerg attack tactics. A harsh death penalty makes players choose their targets carefully in both PVE and PVP and use tactics and strategy and planning which should be required and makes the gameplay more interesting and challenging.
A harsh death penalty makes exploring exciting, not to be careless and venture too far into the unknown without a safe line of retreat.
You know a game's death penalty is a joke when people kill themselves to port across the zone as I did in WoW.
The only thing i noticed with games that have pvp and harsh penalties is, people become pussies in games with harsh pvp penalties. They become all talk and no substance, they will trash talk, they willl flame, smear, insult but they will not fight because neither of them are willing to lose what they earned. Or if they do fight, they will do sleazy attack tactics like in lineage 2 where people dont fight unless they do hardcore ganking.
Sorry, i think time is better spent playing the game and not debating whether or not you want to get punshed for playing it. The only sutible death penalty is a corpse run eq/wow style with some armor repair cost, i have no interest in losing exp, and i sure as hell never want to lose my armor. I played lineage 2 for a long time, and ive out grown that crap. I dont know how people find it fun, but a lot less people agree with it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
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Originally posted by Miner-2049er Finally some guy earlier said that death penalties make people over-cautious. This is only true when rushing to max-level. I get personal satisfaction knowing I attempted a challenge even if not one other player I play with knows that I took the difficult route through the game. It's got nothing to do with trying to appear hardcore or whatever, I just cannot stand a game where the ONLY challenge is finding the time to play it.
I played the heck out of Civilization. I enjoyed it immensely. Heck, I wrote quite a few mods for it. And I should probably update them now that a patch finally came out.
Anyway, in Civilization, no matter how long the game is played, a loss is still much like loosing a battle in an MMORPG. Even though it's a long battle and a lot is lost due to it, there is no penalty for when you pick up the next game and try again.
When it comes to other games, most of them let you try several approaches, including the slow even grind that is pretty safe, the more rapid grind that includes the occasional mishap, and then the dangerous adventure that does get the heart pumping, but is also pretty dangerous and thus can only be attempted once in a blue moon, unless you like doing that one adventure for the rest of your time playing the game.
As for PvP... That just means you have to PvE to be able to PvP, which in turn means there's a lot of people PvEing instead of PvPing where they would rather be, assuming they even enjoy the PvE aspect.
It's not a harsh death penalty per se that makes a game good, although that is certainly one thing that can help. It's more the sense of challenge that is created by having a harsher death penalty. Also, I believe a gamer needs to feel like he (or she) can lose something important by failing. And a harsher death penalty is one way to make you feel like you've lost something. It also forces you to develop some kind of strategy on an adventure. Otherwise, you can just bulldoze your way through a zone, dying and returning, dying and returning until you've completed your objective. What's fun about that?
I need to save these reponses so I can just cut and paste every time this comes up. Death penalties encourage ultra-cautious play, which is boring. If I only play for 5 hours a week, and I loose all of that progress because I died one time, then I don't get to do a whole lot of exciting stuff with my time. Look at FFXI, people sit around in a "camp" and pull mobs into it one by one. It's a very safe way of getting experience and thus prevents people from delevelling while trying to, well, level. But it's ultimately very boring. The fact that I went out on a journey/quest alone and failed in that journey is a pretty big penalty given the time I have available. As a previous poster said, it all boils down to time. Punishing the player with having to grind out more stuff (exp, loot, cash) just further pushes some of the boring parts of the game onto the player more than they are already there.
In EQ1 people who played this way were often referred to as Kunark cyclers. People who would never set foot in a dungeon and only level in the outdoor easy areas. Now there is nothing wrong with that if you don't like taking the risk you don't have to. But those of us who did take the risk of dungeon crawling and challenging ourselves were better geared, more skilled and for the most part better players all around for it. The fun and rewards for taking those risks was what kept me in EQ for all those years. To this day I can name pieces of gear I got because they were not easy to get. Things like the screaming mace, Paw of opalla, Nature walkers scimitar, 7th coldain prayer shawl, etc etc. I can't name one thing I have gotten in any other game because it all drops like candy. A big part of that difficulting was overcomming the death penalty.
The more I think about this the more it seems to me that Harsh Death penalties are good for PVE, or Solo PVP, or SOLO RPGs, but not so good in group PVP for this reason: If you play a game with real life friends, and one of your friends die in battle and then your group is short handed because of the game design. People die for all sorts of reasons and often not anything they could have done any differently in battle would have changed this.
Thunderstorm makes power flicker on and off you have to reboot and bam your dead, Hell the other day since I live on a newly built street in a newly develping neighborhood, work on a home being built down the road hit a main and my cable, internet and phones were down for 24 hours. There are so many things that can make you lose connection that death penalties in those situatuions pretty much seem like you got the short end of it, and not only did it affect you it affects your entire team.
In games like that a group of real friends are more likely to go play a game where they can have fun rather than play one that keeps wrongly punishing the enitre group. When you are in a group you already have a reason to fight better in battle, because you don;t want to let your friends down, you already want to win so you can celebrate the victory with your friends, The harshness of the death penalty does not enchance this, or make you fight any better than you already would in that situation. It is only when you have no other reason to fight such as in solo play that a harsh death penalty would be substituted for that feeling you would have gotten from fighting with your real friends, people you know and who will give you hell for it later if you mess up.
In group play all this does is cause arguements and rifts amongst friends rather than enhancing gameplay, and if these are real friends, real friends would rather go play something they can all play together without the hassles rather than play something they are going to fight about. If the death penalty is one that say you lose your gear not that big of a deal in group play because as a group you could stockpile it and have an equipment manager there ready to suit you up to go back out so it really doesn;t hurt you all that much or spoil your fun. In solo play this is harder though because you are on your own in getting armor and such, so you don;t have your team there helping you.
I think this should be a personal option, you should be able to turn death penalty off and on that way both types of players can play the way they want.. and problem solved. Though the types of players that think they need the death penalty in order to have fun , also thinks it needs to be imposed on them externally otherwise they would have to blame themselves for causing this to happen, and this would make them feel like complete idiots for choosing to make themselves suffer while the other players laughed at them for doing that to themselves and then being upset about it. I mean think about it .. you want this to happen then you get mad when it does.. and then complain that it needs to happen to everyone so that you can feel better about it happening to you. Talk about mental .. why don't you just go into your kitchen turn on your rangetop and dare yourself to touch it. then when you get burned you can blame yourself and it would accomplish this faster than punishing yourself in a game Your friends will still make fun of you for punishing yourself. same outcome. LOL
It's not really about death penalty for me but rather there needs to be terms for victory and defeat. Now on the other hand, death penalty can get you all that....
-- Permadeath -----
Also, I'd like to see permadeath get played around with. I dont expect it for a Commercial product but rather I'd like to see an Indie (mini-MMO) play around with it.
It would be unfair to ask a majopr publisher to toy around with PD but I'd like to see something Indie popup that tries it. Have fast ramp up to Level. At all times all levels should be busy. Hard encounters. Might give some players a heart attack though but it would be a real thrill
Raw permadeath might be too much but it would be awesome to be max level here. Would really mean something. I would respect a player that hit max level in that game. right now, I have no respect for max level players.
The worst communities in MMOs I have seen are the ones with the worst death penalties. In FF11 when a wipe would happen people would start arguing about whose fault it was. Fingers were pointed, insults were flung and the group would break apart. Also, a lot of times people would leave a group if they died just once, which would cause the group to either break up or spend time looking for a replacement. One of the reasons I quit FF11 is because someone got mad at someone else, purposely made a bad pull and killed all of us which caused me to delevel and half my armor was now unwearable. The communities for PvP focused MMOs with harsh death penalties are even worse. In UO everyone was so paranoid and distrustful that is was impossible to just say "Hi" to random people. Harsh death penalties do not evoke joy because of some sense of "risk vs reward". They only cause annoyance because the real thing you are losing is time which you can not get back. I do not feel like losing hours(and in some cases like FF11) weeks of my time because of other people are idiots or my internet crapped out. Some people have forgotten that MMORPGs are video games and video games are meant to be fun, they are not meant to punish you at every turn.
I have to disagree, of all the MMOs i've played the best communities reside on games with a harsh death penalty. When you are in a group in an MMO with no penalty you may or may not notice when a groupmate truly excels, either way it doesn't matter to you. When you are playing in an MMO with a harsh death penalty and you group with a particularly stellar character you remember them because of their actions. The next time you see that person looking for a group you are more likely to invite them than someone you haven't group with before. Hell, if i'm playing FFXI and I'm looking for xxxx job, I'm going to pick the guy I grouped with and didn't get me killed, against the untried stranger.
There are no hard and fast rules on death penalties though, it is up to each player's preferences. I prefer a harsh death penalty simply because I feel it makes me care for my character more. In WoW I don't care if my character lives or dies, item degradation is a joke, if you die you have to spend a few minutes running back to your gravestone.... wooo
In EQ I raided the Plane of Fear at lvl 46. For those of you who don't know, the absolute minimum lvl you need to be to enter the original planes was 46. Well my guild had a bad break in, and we wiped, I deleveled back to 45, couldn't enter the plane without a resurrection. Furthermore, the whole guild wiped, so we had no one to come in to resurrect us. We had another guild come in and try the break and they also wiped. So there we sat 60-70 naked chars sitting around the fear portal twiddling our thumbs, all of us frantically asking everyone on our friends lists if they were planing a Fear raid. As time went on with no help in sight I had to log out and go to sleep knowing that I'll probably loose the months of work I put into that character to equip him. The next day when I logged in, I get a tell asking if I needed a rez. That was the happiest I've ever been playing a video game. I still remember those event vividly though they happened nearly 10 years ago. (If there are any old Sol Invictus guild members on this forum, thanks again!)
Now if those events had happened in a game with no death penalty it would have been a non-event. You remember the good, you remember the bad, but you're mind glazes over the meh.
It's not really about death penalty for me but rather there needs to be terms for victory and defeat. Now on the other hand, death penalty can get you all that....
-- Permadeath ----- Also, I'd like to see permadeath get played around with. I dont expect it for a Commercial product but rather I'd like to see an Indie (mini-MMO) play around with it. It would be unfair to ask a majopr publisher to toy around with PD but I'd like to see something Indie popup that tries it. Have fast ramp up to Level. At all times all levels should be busy. Hard encounters. Might give some players a heart attack though but it would be a real thrill
Raw permadeath might be too much but it would be awesome to be max level here. Would really mean something. I would respect a player that hit max level in that game. right now, I have no respect for max level players.
Could be something huge or a total disaster....
Played with a PermaDeath guild in DnD for awhile. Was a blast, if you died you would get to try different feats and/or class combinations. Was also a thriving guild, always a group or two going.
But if you don't ever make it to the high levels in that game, it starts to get boring. Same quests over and over and over and over and over. It worked and didn't work in that game. It worked cause character creation was superb and the DnD ruleset really worked well with PermaDeath. It didn't work because it was not an open world, and you were forced to do the same content just to level each time.
An open world game, with DnD ruleset i think could have successful PermaDeath.
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius." -Oscar Wilde
The worst communities in MMOs I have seen are the ones with the worst death penalties. In FF11 when a wipe would happen people would start arguing about whose fault it was. Fingers were pointed, insults were flung and the group would break apart. Also, a lot of times people would leave a group if they died just once, which would cause the group to either break up or spend time looking for a replacement. One of the reasons I quit FF11 is because someone got mad at someone else, purposely made a bad pull and killed all of us which caused me to delevel and half my armor was now unwearable. The communities for PvP focused MMOs with harsh death penalties are even worse. In UO everyone was so paranoid and distrustful that is was impossible to just say "Hi" to random people. Harsh death penalties do not evoke joy because of some sense of "risk vs reward". They only cause annoyance because the real thing you are losing is time which you can not get back. I do not feel like losing hours(and in some cases like FF11) weeks of my time because of other people are idiots or my internet crapped out. Some people have forgotten that MMORPGs are video games and video games are meant to be fun, they are not meant to punish you at every turn.
i could careless if there is a death penalty or not. Doesnt make a game better or worse for me.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Originally posted by pencilrick Basically, there is some uknown variable connecting dying with surviving and winning. As this variable is increased, the feelings (joy or grief) go up in both. You've seen games which were too easy and sort of gave you your victory. In those games, dying was meaningless and winning equally so. However, in games where you had to take risks, and in which the penalty for failing was harsh, the rewards for winning were all the sweeter. Naturally, there is some balance, and a penalty can be too harsh. I think that if dying makes you "almost" want to pound your keyboard, then the winning times will be quite enjoyable. Really, the fun in a game = joy - grief. Games with wimpy death penalties are reducing both joy and grief, but are less fun in total. After all, you presumably win more times than lose, so the "joy" side of the equation should always be proportionately larger than the "grief" side. Take this from a former Psychology major. (ah, finally found a use for Psychology.)
I don't know if I'd say unknown variable as looking at what kind of reactions both a win or a loss brings I'd infer that it is the same variables involved in which make gambling and extreme sports so satisfying and ultimately addictive. This is really besides the point however.
I think the rest of this post fits nicely with my design philosophies regarding loss or success in MMO's, regarding death or other things. I think it is true that the more you risk the more sweet the reward, but I think it might be oversimplification to say that people will react this way or that to the possibility of loss or success.
Some people are very cautious when the risk of great loss is nearby, while others use their knowledge that others will be cautious to their advantage, calculating and acting calmly as to gain the highest possible increase regarding probability for success. Some people find the possibility of great success causes them to do foolish things, some however become more cautious, attempting to guarantee that success. So it really is a character trait, it isn't universal, and thus can't be designed for one way or the other.
The idea that death penalties have to exist for everyone, be the same for everyone, be the same in all circumstances or even exist at all is unthoughtful. The truth is there are so many ways to deal with failure and success, especially in death, that to simply choose a single design that is supposed to govern all situations at all times and for all people is mundane and lazy.
Death penalties are very much a double edged sword, but sometimes one blade of the sword is a lot sharper, it really all depends on a great number of variables and as such should be implemented with inventiveness and great caution, not with the arrogant idea that there is one static design that will work for all situations and for all players within a certain game world.
Whats so great is that those who want a harsher penalty can ALWAYS create one very easily in any MMO. The fact that they never do IN-GAME speaks volumes. You can moan all you want on a forum, but if you don't follow up, you're just a hypocrite. Delete gold, delete gear, step away from the computer for a 1/2 hr. Theres plenty of penalties you can self inflict on yourself. Nothing is stopping you except yourself.
Someone always comes along and spouts this same idiotic suggestion.
I repeat my same response:
I play MMOGs in part to be competitive and I don't fancy competing at a disadvantage. I want a level playing field where all participants are subject to the same game mechanics and game rules. The only things that should favor players is length of time played, amount of time you are willing to play, and playing smart.
Whats so great is that those who want a harsher penalty can ALWAYS create one very easily in any MMO. The fact that they never do IN-GAME speaks volumes. You can moan all you want on a forum, but if you don't follow up, you're just a hypocrite. Delete gold, delete gear, step away from the computer for a 1/2 hr. Theres plenty of penalties you can self inflict on yourself. Nothing is stopping you except yourself.
Someone always comes along and spouts this same idiotic suggestion.
I repeat my same response:
I play MMOGs in part to be competitive and I don't fancy competing at a disadvantage. I want a level playing field where all participants are subject to the same game mechanics and game rules. The only things that should favor players is length of time played, amount of time you are willing to play, and playing smart.
Its about as idiotic as expecting any developer to cater to such a tiny fringe hardcore group who enjoys wasting their time. As usual its not about whats best for the game. If a challenge was all you wanted, creating your own death penalty would be fine, but its not about YOUR penalty. Its about pushing that playstyle on everyone else. You don't want an equal playing field because by playing smart, YOU wouldn't incure that penalty as much as all the noobies. You claim its equal but its inherenthly not. You'd play smarter than them. You wouldn't play equal to the dummies. Knowing you can avoid that penalty better than others is what rocks your socks off. Thats whats "cool" about the penalty.
If the penalty and challenge was whats important, you wouldn't care what the penalty for other people is. Whats really important is your ability to feel superior to those who get penalized more than you. Its basic MMO psych 101. You want others to get punished.
Comments
You got a point about the "camp" thing. This is what made me quit EQ many times. But I think if the industry wanted, they'd come with a solution to have strong death penaltyes and not camping. Well,, just the quest grinding we have now would get rid of that.
Whats so great is that those who want a harsher penalty can ALWAYS create one very easily in any MMO. The fact that they never do IN-GAME speaks volumes. You can moan all you want on a forum, but if you don't follow up, you're just a hypocrite. Delete gold, delete gear, step away from the computer for a 1/2 hr. Theres plenty of penalties you can self inflict on yourself. Nothing is stopping you except yourself.
I am currently playing Civilisation, and on some difficulty levels it is really difficult to win. I know that after about 5 days thinking I am going to win I can still lose at the last minute due to a mistake or even bad luck. It is the fact that I know I can lose that makes winning so much more sweet.
20 years ago I used to play a Robotron clone on my C64 that has no save feature, and didn't even have a pause key. When I finally completed the game it took just over 2 hours of game time without any break at all. I still remember the elation I got from completing the game that lasted about a week.
When I had a Commodore Amiga I used to play Indy 500; the full race. If you made one mistake on one of the 800 left turns you would hit the wall and most times you were out of the race. I only won the race twice, but it was one of my favourite games.
Why is it that MMOs, and their players are so intent on the rush to max level that they cannot accept any set-backs. I've recently soloed a character in FFXI all the way to level 50. Why? Because it's a challenge.
Although I've tried playing permadeath in WoW with about 5 or so Alts it is almost impossible to get past level 30 without some bad luck chain of events that causes death. Still, IF I COULD I would happily chose myself to lose a level. Unfortunatley, games don't even have a mechanism to let you voluntarily lose EXP.
As far as I'm concerned it's much more exciting fighting a battle if you know that dying is going to hurt. I find it laughable that in most games dying is barely an inconvenience. I mean, why bother with HP at all. I am dismayed that so many people cannot see this. I mean, have they never struggled in a game to complete it and felt the thrill of eventual success. I am guessing that they must complete every game with a guide and move on to another game as soon as they stop winning.
BTW, I have still tried other different self imposed penalties. Such as dumping 1 item from my inventory or giving money away every time I die. I find this better than no penalty at all.
Finally some guy earlier said that death penalties make people over-cautious. This is only true when rushing to max-level. I get personal satisfaction knowing I attempted a challenge even if not one other player I play with knows that I took the difficult route through the game. It's got nothing to do with trying to appear hardcore or whatever, I just cannot stand a game where the ONLY challenge is finding the time to play it.
HAHAHAH this is the absolute dumbest argument I've ever seen, and reminds me so much of what the NGE fanboys would spout at us when we complained about the complete removal of all death penalties in SWG... HAHAH.
Man... What a flashback I just had. That was literally word for word what the NGE lovers used to proclaim. hehe
Anyways, that is a really dumb argument because the game is not designed for such penalties. The games with no penalties usually have gear that takes a really long time to get, where as a game with gear loss as a penalty has gear that is fairly easy to replace. Stepping away from the computer would only hurt your team as the game was designed for you to get right back into the action.
You are also trying to push penalty without reward. Part of the reward of harsh death penalties is, for instance in a full loot game, you get to take the gear from the person you beat. You also can't make yourself lose exp or a level.
And no one wants to be inflicted with a harsh penalty when they know that no one else in the game has to deal with it.
Honestly though, that was funny, thanks for the laugh
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
reson for death penalties is makes u more carefull.. like daoc death penalty was pretty harsh so when u pvped u picked ur targets better and sized up ur opposition .. where as in wow it was just a suiside fest kepp running into keeps til u finally cought them no stratigy just mass suisised.. u coulnt do that in daoc
The worst communities in MMOs I have seen are the ones with the worst death penalties.
In FF11 when a wipe would happen people would start arguing about whose fault it was. Fingers were pointed, insults were flung and the group would break apart. Also, a lot of times people would leave a group if they died just once, which would cause the group to either break up or spend time looking for a replacement. One of the reasons I quit FF11 is because someone got mad at someone else, purposely made a bad pull and killed all of us which caused me to delevel and half my armor was now unwearable.
The communities for PvP focused MMOs with harsh death penalties are even worse. In UO everyone was so paranoid and distrustful that is was impossible to just say "Hi" to random people.
Harsh death penalties do not evoke joy because of some sense of "risk vs reward". They only cause annoyance because the real thing you are losing is time which you can not get back. I do not feel like losing hours(and in some cases like FF11) weeks of my time because of other people are idiots or my internet crapped out.
Some people have forgotten that MMORPGs are video games and video games are meant to be fun, they are not meant to punish you at every turn.
lol u are right on the arguing though i remember wiping on tuskin glasure in daoc omg =D btw im very sorry about my spelling and grammer i know it blows
Well to answer the origonal OP post ill have to present 2 examples one without a harsh penalty and one with.
Without. [As in like WoW]
You enter a battle without hesitation and tap whatever buttons you need to fight you watch oponents stats to see how you are doing. You hope you will win but in the end it doesant matter as you wont lose anything if you lose this fight.
With. [As in like EvE]
You consider if you have a chance to win this battle and decide you have a fare chance so you fight him. You tap whatever buttons you need to fight him and you watch your stats and his incase you need to run, right now your heart is pounding as you know you can lose your ship and everything on it if you lose. You really hope you will win as although you can afford to lose your ship you would rather not.
So i guess the main difference between a game with a ahrsh penalty and one without a penalty is that you both become more considerate in where and with who you pick a fight with and when you actually fight your pulse is pounding because the losses if you lose are real. And they are real as your items you could lose took you real life time to save up for so they have real value.
Not everyone likes to actually care about there items in this way but for those that want meaningfull PvP rather than just random re-spawn PvP such penalties add so much to a game.
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Maybe FFXI failed then, I don't know I haven't played it. It sounds like your problem is that you have yet to play a game that makes your heart race and your hands shake. Any win at the end is so much sweeter for it.
The depth and quality of any experience is equal to the difference between the lowest low and highest high, unless you have the mentality of a train spotter who gets "excited" about collecting another train id number.
MMORPG
A harsh death penalty is an important component to making a quality game.
Without a harsh death penalty, no one fears dying and losing in combat which results in zerg attack tactics. A harsh death penalty makes players choose their targets carefully in both PVE and PVP and use tactics and strategy and planning which should be required and makes the gameplay more interesting and challenging.
A harsh death penalty makes exploring exciting, not to be careless and venture too far into the unknown without a safe line of retreat.
You know a game's death penalty is a joke when people kill themselves to port across the zone as I did in WoW.
The only thing i noticed with games that have pvp and harsh penalties is, people become pussies in games with harsh pvp penalties. They become all talk and no substance, they will trash talk, they willl flame, smear, insult but they will not fight because neither of them are willing to lose what they earned. Or if they do fight, they will do sleazy attack tactics like in lineage 2 where people dont fight unless they do hardcore ganking.
Sorry, i think time is better spent playing the game and not debating whether or not you want to get punshed for playing it. The only sutible death penalty is a corpse run eq/wow style with some armor repair cost, i have no interest in losing exp, and i sure as hell never want to lose my armor. I played lineage 2 for a long time, and ive out grown that crap. I dont know how people find it fun, but a lot less people agree with it.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I played the heck out of Civilization. I enjoyed it immensely. Heck, I wrote quite a few mods for it. And I should probably update them now that a patch finally came out.
Anyway, in Civilization, no matter how long the game is played, a loss is still much like loosing a battle in an MMORPG. Even though it's a long battle and a lot is lost due to it, there is no penalty for when you pick up the next game and try again.
When it comes to other games, most of them let you try several approaches, including the slow even grind that is pretty safe, the more rapid grind that includes the occasional mishap, and then the dangerous adventure that does get the heart pumping, but is also pretty dangerous and thus can only be attempted once in a blue moon, unless you like doing that one adventure for the rest of your time playing the game.
As for PvP... That just means you have to PvE to be able to PvP, which in turn means there's a lot of people PvEing instead of PvPing where they would rather be, assuming they even enjoy the PvE aspect.
It's not a harsh death penalty per se that makes a game good, although that is certainly one thing that can help. It's more the sense of challenge that is created by having a harsher death penalty. Also, I believe a gamer needs to feel like he (or she) can lose something important by failing. And a harsher death penalty is one way to make you feel like you've lost something. It also forces you to develop some kind of strategy on an adventure. Otherwise, you can just bulldoze your way through a zone, dying and returning, dying and returning until you've completed your objective. What's fun about that?
In EQ1 people who played this way were often referred to as Kunark cyclers. People who would never set foot in a dungeon and only level in the outdoor easy areas. Now there is nothing wrong with that if you don't like taking the risk you don't have to. But those of us who did take the risk of dungeon crawling and challenging ourselves were better geared, more skilled and for the most part better players all around for it. The fun and rewards for taking those risks was what kept me in EQ for all those years. To this day I can name pieces of gear I got because they were not easy to get. Things like the screaming mace, Paw of opalla, Nature walkers scimitar, 7th coldain prayer shawl, etc etc. I can't name one thing I have gotten in any other game because it all drops like candy. A big part of that difficulting was overcomming the death penalty.
The more I think about this the more it seems to me that Harsh Death penalties are good for PVE, or Solo PVP, or SOLO RPGs, but not so good in group PVP for this reason: If you play a game with real life friends, and one of your friends die in battle and then your group is short handed because of the game design. People die for all sorts of reasons and often not anything they could have done any differently in battle would have changed this.
Thunderstorm makes power flicker on and off you have to reboot and bam your dead, Hell the other day since I live on a newly built street in a newly develping neighborhood, work on a home being built down the road hit a main and my cable, internet and phones were down for 24 hours. There are so many things that can make you lose connection that death penalties in those situatuions pretty much seem like you got the short end of it, and not only did it affect you it affects your entire team.
In games like that a group of real friends are more likely to go play a game where they can have fun rather than play one that keeps wrongly punishing the enitre group. When you are in a group you already have a reason to fight better in battle, because you don;t want to let your friends down, you already want to win so you can celebrate the victory with your friends, The harshness of the death penalty does not enchance this, or make you fight any better than you already would in that situation. It is only when you have no other reason to fight such as in solo play that a harsh death penalty would be substituted for that feeling you would have gotten from fighting with your real friends, people you know and who will give you hell for it later if you mess up.
In group play all this does is cause arguements and rifts amongst friends rather than enhancing gameplay, and if these are real friends, real friends would rather go play something they can all play together without the hassles rather than play something they are going to fight about. If the death penalty is one that say you lose your gear not that big of a deal in group play because as a group you could stockpile it and have an equipment manager there ready to suit you up to go back out so it really doesn;t hurt you all that much or spoil your fun. In solo play this is harder though because you are on your own in getting armor and such, so you don;t have your team there helping you.
I think this should be a personal option, you should be able to turn death penalty off and on that way both types of players can play the way they want.. and problem solved. Though the types of players that think they need the death penalty in order to have fun , also thinks it needs to be imposed on them externally otherwise they would have to blame themselves for causing this to happen, and this would make them feel like complete idiots for choosing to make themselves suffer while the other players laughed at them for doing that to themselves and then being upset about it. I mean think about it .. you want this to happen then you get mad when it does.. and then complain that it needs to happen to everyone so that you can feel better about it happening to you. Talk about mental .. why don't you just go into your kitchen turn on your rangetop and dare yourself to touch it. then when you get burned you can blame yourself and it would accomplish this faster than punishing yourself in a game
Your friends will still make fun of you for punishing yourself. same outcome. LOL
It's not really about death penalty for me but rather there needs to be terms for victory and defeat. Now on the other hand, death penalty can get you all that....
-- Permadeath -----
Also, I'd like to see permadeath get played around with. I dont expect it for a Commercial product but rather I'd like to see an Indie (mini-MMO) play around with it.
It would be unfair to ask a majopr publisher to toy around with PD but I'd like to see something Indie popup that tries it. Have fast ramp up to Level. At all times all levels should be busy. Hard encounters. Might give some players a heart attack though but it would be a real thrill
Raw permadeath might be too much but it would be awesome to be max level here. Would really mean something. I would respect a player that hit max level in that game. right now, I have no respect for max level players.
Could be something huge or a total disaster....
I have to disagree, of all the MMOs i've played the best communities reside on games with a harsh death penalty. When you are in a group in an MMO with no penalty you may or may not notice when a groupmate truly excels, either way it doesn't matter to you. When you are playing in an MMO with a harsh death penalty and you group with a particularly stellar character you remember them because of their actions. The next time you see that person looking for a group you are more likely to invite them than someone you haven't group with before. Hell, if i'm playing FFXI and I'm looking for xxxx job, I'm going to pick the guy I grouped with and didn't get me killed, against the untried stranger.
There are no hard and fast rules on death penalties though, it is up to each player's preferences. I prefer a harsh death penalty simply because I feel it makes me care for my character more. In WoW I don't care if my character lives or dies, item degradation is a joke, if you die you have to spend a few minutes running back to your gravestone.... wooo
In EQ I raided the Plane of Fear at lvl 46. For those of you who don't know, the absolute minimum lvl you need to be to enter the original planes was 46. Well my guild had a bad break in, and we wiped, I deleveled back to 45, couldn't enter the plane without a resurrection. Furthermore, the whole guild wiped, so we had no one to come in to resurrect us. We had another guild come in and try the break and they also wiped. So there we sat 60-70 naked chars sitting around the fear portal twiddling our thumbs, all of us frantically asking everyone on our friends lists if they were planing a Fear raid. As time went on with no help in sight I had to log out and go to sleep knowing that I'll probably loose the months of work I put into that character to equip him. The next day when I logged in, I get a tell asking if I needed a rez. That was the happiest I've ever been playing a video game. I still remember those event vividly though they happened nearly 10 years ago. (If there are any old Sol Invictus guild members on this forum, thanks again!)
Now if those events had happened in a game with no death penalty it would have been a non-event. You remember the good, you remember the bad, but you're mind glazes over the meh.
Played with a PermaDeath guild in DnD for awhile. Was a blast, if you died you would get to try different feats and/or class combinations. Was also a thriving guild, always a group or two going.
But if you don't ever make it to the high levels in that game, it starts to get boring. Same quests over and over and over and over and over. It worked and didn't work in that game. It worked cause character creation was superb and the DnD ruleset really worked well with PermaDeath. It didn't work because it was not an open world, and you were forced to do the same content just to level each time.
An open world game, with DnD ruleset i think could have successful PermaDeath.
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."
-Oscar Wilde
This.
i could careless if there is a death penalty or not. Doesnt make a game better or worse for me.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
I don't know if I'd say unknown variable as looking at what kind of reactions both a win or a loss brings I'd infer that it is the same variables involved in which make gambling and extreme sports so satisfying and ultimately addictive. This is really besides the point however.
I think the rest of this post fits nicely with my design philosophies regarding loss or success in MMO's, regarding death or other things. I think it is true that the more you risk the more sweet the reward, but I think it might be oversimplification to say that people will react this way or that to the possibility of loss or success.
Some people are very cautious when the risk of great loss is nearby, while others use their knowledge that others will be cautious to their advantage, calculating and acting calmly as to gain the highest possible increase regarding probability for success. Some people find the possibility of great success causes them to do foolish things, some however become more cautious, attempting to guarantee that success. So it really is a character trait, it isn't universal, and thus can't be designed for one way or the other.
The idea that death penalties have to exist for everyone, be the same for everyone, be the same in all circumstances or even exist at all is unthoughtful. The truth is there are so many ways to deal with failure and success, especially in death, that to simply choose a single design that is supposed to govern all situations at all times and for all people is mundane and lazy.
Death penalties are very much a double edged sword, but sometimes one blade of the sword is a lot sharper, it really all depends on a great number of variables and as such should be implemented with inventiveness and great caution, not with the arrogant idea that there is one static design that will work for all situations and for all players within a certain game world.
- Burying Threads Since 1979 -
Someone always comes along and spouts this same idiotic suggestion.
I repeat my same response:
I play MMOGs in part to be competitive and I don't fancy competing at a disadvantage. I want a level playing field where all participants are subject to the same game mechanics and game rules. The only things that should favor players is length of time played, amount of time you are willing to play, and playing smart.
Someone always comes along and spouts this same idiotic suggestion.
I repeat my same response:
I play MMOGs in part to be competitive and I don't fancy competing at a disadvantage. I want a level playing field where all participants are subject to the same game mechanics and game rules. The only things that should favor players is length of time played, amount of time you are willing to play, and playing smart.
Its about as idiotic as expecting any developer to cater to such a tiny fringe hardcore group who enjoys wasting their time. As usual its not about whats best for the game. If a challenge was all you wanted, creating your own death penalty would be fine, but its not about YOUR penalty. Its about pushing that playstyle on everyone else. You don't want an equal playing field because by playing smart, YOU wouldn't incure that penalty as much as all the noobies. You claim its equal but its inherenthly not. You'd play smarter than them. You wouldn't play equal to the dummies. Knowing you can avoid that penalty better than others is what rocks your socks off. Thats whats "cool" about the penalty.
If the penalty and challenge was whats important, you wouldn't care what the penalty for other people is. Whats really important is your ability to feel superior to those who get penalized more than you. Its basic MMO psych 101. You want others to get punished.