Originally posted by RamenThief7 Originally posted by ArchAngel102 A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment? For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared. Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.
If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.
If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.
A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.
If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.
If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.
Heh heh heh...I'll say this right now. DO NOT say that yellow shaded part to the 500k subscriptions of FF XI or the EVE Online crowd. I mean it, just simply avoid saying that part to said people.
By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).
By the way, that green shaded part, I'll explain this a little better. Do you actually think a person failing a dungeon the 100-upteenth time because he thinks he's making progress is actually good, when the person should realize his level is far too low to survive the dungeon? Think carefully to what you just agreed to.
Heh heh heh...I'll say this right now. DO NOT say that yellow shaded part to the 500k subscriptions of FF XI or the EVE Online crowd. I mean it, just simply avoid saying that part to said people.
I'll be sure not to :P.
By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).
I think it really depends on the penalty. An XP loss does convey some challenge because it is difficult avoiding it. You can't really slap around and still get stuff done, because if you die too much you'll end up going no where. I'm not sure how harsh FFXI's XP loss is, so I can't really say if it is something that would just extend time overall (because unless you're dying a hundred times you'll still progress, just a lot slower).
An item loss seems a bit different for me. It feels more like an annoyance because you have to spend a bunch of time replacing that gear. With that said I think EVE does it well where it allows you to insure your ship. Then again that game is something entirely different, and PvP is a bit more "realistic" in the sense that you have a point where you won't want to send out more ships and just cut your losses.
I guess I've just seen too many games that were easy and masqueraded that fact with a piss poor death penalty system.
By the way, that green shaded part, I'll explain this a little better. Do you actually think a person failing a dungeon the 100-upteenth time because he thinks he's making progress is actually good, when the person should realize his level is far too low to survive the dungeon? Think carefully to what you just agreed to.
I don't know, I think there certainly is a fine line to it. I do admire someone who will keep on trying -- and from a development point of view this is a great thing to have because it really ups the longevity. Still I understand what you are saying, although I've done things before in WoW that I would never have tried if a harsh death penalty was intact. (like trying to solo elites, ect.)
So I think I can see some good uses of death penalty, however it (obviously) needs to have the game built around it. I also still prefer, at least right now, PvP games without a very harsh penalty so that it doesn't keep you out of the action too long. Aion's penalty is perfect for me because it is skill based (you need a good K:D ratio in order to progress and get gear) but it won't keep you out of the fight for long at all.
I also think that death penalty makes more sense in a PvE game, or a game such as EVE. Not so much in other games.
Give me a game that has tough death penalties, is challenging to level and is tough to get the best gear and lost of money; and I will play it forever. I can't stand easy mode games.
Old School EQ 1.
Anyway, to help out what >>>I<<< meant by hardcore, I'll define it:
By hardcore death, I meant permadeath, as I was referring to the Diablo 2 term, as it is the most common game to have such a system (yet is not an MMO).
As for EQ death, I simply found it too strict, but NOT hardcore. I find WoW/AoC death meaningless.
What I'm looking for is the possibility of a game where the death penalty is without Exp loss, or it's equivalent. Most have replaced this with outirght time-sinks, but the sting just is not the same. I think death should be more than WoW, but only as tough as EQ if death is fairly infrequent. I would also like to see a form of story implementation as to why each player is immortal.
Unfortunately Everquest doesn't exist anymore. What is left is a ugly patched up mess that tried to copy newer games. Everquest lost everything that made it unique. Everquest is no longer the experience it once was. Classes have become trivalized with removal of game mechanics. Factions mean nothing. Lore is horrible now. The graphics do not match through out the entire game. Everquest doesn't even have anything left to call a meaningful penalty for dying.
Also Sony is trying to get people to pay World of Warcraft prices 15/month PLUS they added an item shop for the final nail in the coffin.
Hi, I've been around these forums for a while but never registered to post, but this topic I find quite interesting so I'll just say what I think.
First of all I think that death system shouldn't be any extreme option.
Having no penalty at all (or one that is really small) affects gameplay in such a way that not only there are less challenges but also can be exploited in many ways like just corpse running through a corridor full of guards to get to the treasure chamber without fighting your way in. Or it could be that some lowbie char would act as a lure to make a group of say two dragons split up so that they could be killed one at a time (supposing that wasn't the intended way to be killed I mean).
The opposite isn't good either. Permadeath, be it with 1 chance (life) or several, is an awful idea because of one simple reason: there are things beyond our control, so we could end up losing our character because of a lag spike, internet connection failing, lights in your house going off, etc. So even if you managed to be really careful you'd probably lose your char sooner or later. And no, there wouldn't be a fair way to recover the life you lost because of a disconnect because then it would be exploited by people who, for example, when they were about to die, they would just press Alt+F4 and say their lights went off.
So now I think we'd all agree that neither white nor black fits best, so the question is: which shade of grey, which option in between do we want?
Well that's the point. There's not one single death penalty system for every game. Why? Because games are different in so many ways, that the penalty applied would in some games be seen as irrelevant and in others as extremely hard. So I'd like to make a few points considering the different options mentioned along this thread given how a game can be:
Item loss penalties: Ok, this is one of the most common. I won't talk about whether the loss should be because they are stolen by another player from your corpse, or they just disappear, since it's irrelevant for what I want to discuss:
Games with big investment (tens/hundreds of hours) to get a single item: In this kind of games you just can't make the char lose every/mostitems, because each death would imply having to spend countless weeks/months just to overcome 1 death. So the ideal approach for item loss would be to either lose 1 important item, or all the trivial/common items like reagents, mats, ammo, etc.
Games with small investment: In these games you could perfectly fit in losing all equipped items or all carried items or another combination given that you could overcome getting those items in say a week or so.
Money penalties: Similarly to item loss it depends on the following:
Games with money banking: In these games money could easily be dropped as a percentage or the totality of what the player is carrying since he would have the choice of leaving a deposit in the bank.
Games without money banking: In these games there should be a top fixed amount as to what a player can drop, otherwise players could lose in 1 death what they had earned for months/years, which would be absurd.
Experience penalties: Here I'll split it into:
PvE: If there is a penalty one thing is for sure, if grouped, the whole group should share the same penalty no matter if it was them or a mate who died. This penalty should be approached in a way that implies more than just a timesink, and it should depend on how long takes leveling in the game, so a game with just a month to reach max level could use a harsher penalty than a game which takes more than a year.
PvP: The most adequate way would be to separate the penalty from PvE, meaning that PvE would probably be penalized through experience while PvP could probably be better if penalized on abyss points/honor points/rank/renown, whatever the games uses to check progression on PvP.
That's about it for now, have many more things to comment, but will leave it for later. Don't be hard
PS: Having all those possibilities (item loss, money, experience) doesn't mean that all of them should be used. It could probably be a mixture of them adjusting each.
Hi, I've been around these forums for a while but never registered to post, but this topic I find quite interesting so I'll just say what I think. First of all I think that death system shouldn't be any extreme option.
Having no penalty at all (or one that is really small) affects gameplay in such a way that not only there are less challenges but also can be exploited in many ways like just corpse running through a corridor full of guards to get to the treasure chamber without fighting your way in. Or it could be that some lowbie char would act as a lure to make a group of say two dragons split up so that they could be killed one at a time (supposing that wasn't the intended way to be killed I mean). The opposite isn't good either. Permadeath, be it with 1 chance (life) or several, is an awful idea because of one simple reason: there are things beyond our control, so we could end up losing our character because of a lag spike, internet connection failing, lights in your house going off, etc. So even if you managed to be really careful you'd probably lose your char sooner or later. And no, there wouldn't be a fair way to recover the life you lost because of a disconnect because then it would be exploited by people who, for example, when they were about to die, they would just press Alt+F4 and say their lights went off.
So now I think we'd all agree that neither white nor black fits best, so the question is: which shade of grey, which option in between do we want? Well that's the point. There's not one single death penalty system for every game. Why? Because games are different in so many ways, that the penalty applied would in some games be seen as irrelevant and in others as extremely hard. So I'd like to make a few points considering the different options mentioned along this thread given how a game can be:
Item loss penalties: Ok, this is one of the most common. I won't talk about whether the loss should be because they are stolen by another player from your corpse, or they just disappear, since it's irrelevant for what I want to discuss:
Games with big investment (tens/hundreds of hours) to get a single item: In this kind of games you just can't make the char lose every/mostitems, because each death would imply having to spend countless weeks/months just to overcome 1 death. So the ideal approach for item loss would be to either lose 1 important item, or all the trivial/common items like reagents, mats, ammo, etc. Games with small investment: In these games you could perfectly fit in losing all equipped items or all carried items or another combination given that you could overcome getting those items in say a week or so.
Money penalties: Similarly to item loss it depends on the following:
Games with money banking: In these games money could easily be dropped as a percentage or the totality of what the player is carrying since he would have the choice of leaving a deposit in the bank. Games without money banking: In these games there should be a top fixed amount as to what a player can drop, otherwise players could lose in 1 death what they had earned for months/years, which would be absurd.
Experience penalties: Here I'll split it into:
PvE: If there is a penalty one thing is for sure, if grouped, the whole group should share the same penalty no matter if it was them or a mate who died. This penalty should be approached in a way that implies more than just a timesink, and it should depend on how long takes leveling in the game, so a game with just a month to reach max level could use a harsher penalty than a game which takes more than a year. PvP: The most adequate way would be to separate the penalty from PvE, meaning that PvE would probably be penalized through experience while PvP could probably be better if penalized on abyss points/honor points/rank/renown, whatever the games uses to check progression on PvP.
That's about it for now, have many more things to comment, but will leave it for later. Don't be hard
PS: Having all those possibilities (item loss, money, experience) doesn't mean that all of them should be used. It could probably be a mixture of them adjusting each. That's an excellent thought out post, but I don't think you understand a lot of us don't mind the possibility of permanently losing our characters. To me it adds a challenge and thrill that cannot be reproduced any other way. Your argument is good, but then again kind of weak to me. You are gonna have disconnect deaths anyway and lose time invested, so I don't see the difference in it except in the harshness of it. I've disconnected plenty of times in Everquest quad kiting as a wizard, and of course every time I logged back in from it I'm dead. Wizard is not gonna survive 4 mobs beating on him while disconnected. But guess what? I was soloing. You realize if I was grouping, even if I disconnected, my chances are FAR higher of survival in a group, and that is what needs to be reinforced, is the desire to group to stay alive. That's the smart thing to do. Anything else is rewarding stupidity, imo.
By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).
There is nothing, repeat nothing whatsoever, challenging about a death penalty itself. Avoiding dying is the challenge. The penalty is created by the devs to slow you down. That's all it does. Make your progress take longer. Whether it's through loss of exp or irem decay or anything else, it's designed to be punitive. In the ideal, it's to make you a better player. In reality, it's there to slow you down, and make things take longer.
For me, this is simply an annoyance. And I see zero reason to intentionally put annoyances into a game, unless it is to slow you down, cause then I can see why devs would want it in an MMO.
This has nothing to do with hardcore/casual. The game determines the difficulty of the encounter, that's where the challenge lies. But once you are defeated, the penalty is simply that. How can you be challenged after you are beaten?
I hate to say this, but one of my favorite death systems was AOC. NO I will not go back to playing it do to other resends. But I like the way that the death penalties stacked up.
I'm trying to remember about it (didn't play AoC in forever), but didn't the penalty its self not do too much?
No, just for an example: if you were 10th lvl and had a hard time fighting a 12th lvl mob with out a death penalty. If you died and tryed to fight a 12th lvl mob you would most likely would die. Every death penalty stacked and each one got a liitle worse each time so if you had 3 death penalties you most likely could not win against a 10th lvl mob.
..its a guideline, not a rule, as players we must remember: Its a Game.
There is nothing, repeat nothing whatsoever, challenging about a death penalty itself. Avoiding dying is the challenge. The penalty is created by the devs to slow you down. That's all it does. Make your progress take longer. Whether it's through loss of exp or irem decay or anything else, it's designed to be punitive. In the ideal, it's to make you a better player. In reality, it's there to slow you down, and make things take longer. For me, this is simply an annoyance. And I see zero reason to intentionally put annoyances into a game, unless it is to slow you down, cause then I can see why devs would want it in an MMO. This has nothing to do with hardcore/casual. The game determines the difficulty of the encounter, that's where the challenge lies. But once you are defeated, the penalty is simply that. How can you be challenged after you are beaten?
Rob, I just wanted to say I understand and I agree for the most part for the mainstream MMORPG. I think the reason they haven't completed removed the timesink from death is for not doing content the way the developers intended(which, yes, is supposed to be time consuming). This happened a lot in new Everquest content. Very smart and capable people would figure out ways to trivialize raid content, and GM's would disallow it until the developers "fixed" it so it is "working as intended". So in essence, yes, they want to slow you down, and if you are smart and figure out a way to speed it up, they are gonna nerf it. They want you to do it the way they want you to do it, and their way is time consuming, because that keeps your sub longer.
However, comma, I still don't think you are seeing the possibilities of grief and trivialization of content that can be done through reviving at full capability, which several other posters have already elaborated on. For instance, I don't like this guy I want to pk him, but he's too high of a level. So, I will just harass him and attack him all day while he is grinding, because, hey, what difference does it make? He can't cost me gold, time, experience, or loot, so who cares. Another example: our warrior cannot tank this boss well and survive, but hey, we can res him at full health and ability, so we will just res zerg this boss. This type of strategy should only be used as a last resort, not as a fundamental way to defeat content, which is what it would become if their was no penalty. And I don't think most of us want to play a game where parties take on higher level content than they can handle because they have the ability to zerg it because they revive at full capability. And if you don't think parties and guilds would not res zerg bosses they have no business fighting yet to get powerful equipment, I think you are mistaken.
A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
What right do you have to tell him that he can't try the encounter over and over? If he has fun doing so then you should just butt out of his bussiness. Maybe he is actually making progress and you are just to leet to see that. That's quite an elitist and snobby attitude to have. He is actively challenging himself to beat something very hard rather than taking the easy way out as you would have him do.
I guess they are pretty HARDCORE at schools, because if you fail you have to do the test again or in worst case redo the whole course and the retards never graduate.
SO SCHOOLS ARE HARDCORE
Damn those schools are a WASTE OF TIME! What a stupid SYSTEM INDEED!
A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
What right do you have to tell him that he can't try the encounter over and over? If he has fun doing so then you should just butt out of his bussiness. Maybe he is actually making progress and you are just to leet to see that. That's quite an elitist and snobby attitude to have. He is actively challenging himself to beat something very hard rather than taking the easy way out as you would have him do.
Hey hey hey Torik, the yellow shaded part said that I think there should be games that ArchAngel wants. After all, everyone does need their own game, I just don't like the concept of what I stated in the green shaded part.
Plus, the blue shaded part...You think my way is the easy way out? Let me compare the blue shade part to a real life example. You take a test in school, but you decided not to study much for it. So, as a result, you get a D-. The person that doesn't learn from his mistakes will simply repeat what he's doing, and eventually fails that class. Meanwhile, the person that does learn from his mistake and reviews before the test does better and passes it. Same thing could apply to a dungeon run. In a game without a harsh death penalty, a fool would continuously do dungeon runs to try to beat it, but fails non-stop because he was simply not powerful enough. Someone who learns from his mistake finally realizes he's not strong enough, so he prepares thoroughly so he doesn't die from the next encounter (i.e. packs more potions, gets stronger gear, invites a friend or two possibly, levels up a couple to times to the point where he's as strong as the dungeon's montersters, etc.). So perhaps my way is an easy way, but it's a constructive and well thought out plan. Simply try to beat a dungeon that you obviously can't at the moment and dying continuously honestly does sound stupid to me. Preparing for your next encounter, however, can make a difference. And harsh death penalties do seem to enforce that thought...
He has the right to try the attempt over and over. But hopefully, he learns from what he's doing wrong and eventually starts preparing a little more thoroughly before hand...
Plus, you do realize I'm not calling ArchAngel an idiot. That was an example, I was not comparing ArchAngel to the idiot, rather showing what could possibly happen in a game without a death penalty of some sort.
There is nothing, repeat nothing whatsoever, challenging about a death penalty itself. Avoiding dying is the challenge. The penalty is created by the devs to slow you down. That's all it does. Make your progress take longer. Whether it's through loss of exp or irem decay or anything else, it's designed to be punitive. In the ideal, it's to make you a better player. In reality, it's there to slow you down, and make things take longer. For me, this is simply an annoyance. And I see zero reason to intentionally put annoyances into a game, unless it is to slow you down, cause then I can see why devs would want it in an MMO. This has nothing to do with hardcore/casual. The game determines the difficulty of the encounter, that's where the challenge lies. But once you are defeated, the penalty is simply that. How can you be challenged after you are beaten?
Rob, I just wanted to say I understand and I agree for the most part for the mainstream MMORPG. I think the reason they haven't completed removed the timesink from death is for not doing content the way the developers intended(which, yes, is supposed to be time consuming). This happened a lot in new Everquest content. Very smart and capable people would figure out ways to trivialize raid content, and GM's would disallow it until the developers "fixed" it so it is "working as intended". So in essence, yes, they want to slow you down, and if you are smart and figure out a way to speed it up, they are gonna nerf it. They want you to do it the way they want you to do it, and their way is time consuming, because that keeps your sub longer.
However, comma, I still don't think you are seeing the possibilities of grief and trivialization of content that can be done through reviving at full capability, which several other posters have already elaborated on. For instance, I don't like this guy I want to pk him, but he's too high of a level. So, I will just harass him and attack him all day while he is grinding, because, hey, what difference does it make? He can't cost me gold, time, experience, or loot, so who cares. Another example: our warrior cannot tank this boss well and survive, but hey, we can res him at full health and ability, so we will just res zerg this boss. This type of strategy should only be used as a last resort, not as a fundamental way to defeat content, which is what it would become if their was no penalty. And I don't think most of us want to play a game where parties take on higher level content than they can handle because they have the ability to zerg it because they revive at full capability. And if you don't think parties and guilds would not res zerg bosses they have no business fighting yet to get powerful equipment, I think you are mistaken.
A very thoughtful response. To be honest, I hadn't considered the pvp implications and I think you have a valid point there.
I'm not so sure I agree about the PvE game, though. As long as the encounter reset upon wiping, repeated zerging without changing tactics doesn't have to work.
When I was raiding in Wow, we might get to a boss room. We go in, we attempt the pre-planned strategy and we almost get the boss, but we wipe. So, everyone rezs and makes a long (and imo, pointless) run back to where we were. This took about 6 to 8 minutes. Then we go in and try again, and maybe we fail again or maybe we don't. Either way, i don't see the benefit to the players for having a penalty imposed (item decay, rez sickness) on top of the delay we were already hit with.
Now, if we went in that encounter and just tried to zerg the boss, without any preplanning, we'd never beat him, no matter how many times we tried. So, I don't think it gains the players anything to further punish them for their failure.
First, I am starting to have problems with the term "HARDCORE" in terms of video games.
Maybe it's all about semantics. To me, Hardcore means someone is sacrificing something huge. Maybe that means staying up all night, everynight, playing a game, forgoing friends, relationships, family, job, health...
I actually remember doing corpse runs in EQ rather fondly. They were a pain in the ass, to be sure, but I played a rogue, and made a lot of money retrieving other players' corpses. After a raid wipe, I could retrieve everyones' but our guild-leader's. The boss would aggro me and kill me every time I touched the corpse. I would retrieve mine, get my stuff on, go to hers and wham, be dead and have to start all over again...
So, I think it would be an easier dialogue if we talked about what works, what doesn't and what we like and don't. Let's stay away from labeling and generalizing other players, of whom we really know nothing.
That said, I would love to try a perma-death game. If the game mechanics were like most MMOs, then I wouldn't be playing for long, though.
I would love to try a game with item loss. It's one of the things that intrigues me about Darkfall, too bad its combat mechanics look really lame.
I feel that item loss could make a game less gear-centric, and therefore not the lame, hamster-wheel lottery-themepark that seems to dominate the market.
When I ponder death penalties though, my mind doesn't stop there. I start thinking about how the combat would work, how the game would be played. I begin designing a game from the ground up. Death Penalties shouldn't be just a mindless speed bump. They need to add as much meaning to the game as all the other features...
But then what features have meaning for us? Some people only talk about ganking and twitch. Others talk about roleplaying. One of the reasons I like LotRO is the scenery, of all things, and listening to people play instruments. I like AoC because combat can be fun to watch, when my machine feels up to it... I still play EQ2 because it seems to be a solid design with a lot of things to do: raid, quest, grind, gather, craft, redecorate the house, shop and try stuff on, mentor newbies, duel, enter the arenas... No other game seems to offer such variety and still look decent doing it.
The games I play now, LotRO, AoC and EQ2, well, I hate their death penalties. More exactly, I don't really pay attention to them, because they're meaningless. They only mean the rest of the group has to wait around for an hour because they happened to lose their healer and they need to wait for her to catch up. Basically, if you lose your healer, everybody just go ahead and die, it will save time getting the group back together. And if I purposely die just to save time getting back to the quest giver, well, what does that say about the game's death penalty?
I didn't hate the penalty because it was hard, the issue I have with that penalty is that it broke immersion. If I am having to retrieve my body, then what am I right now? Here I am dragging the corpses of people to the same people... It has no reflection in reality.
I also find it interesting that we play junior sociologists when we talk about what a game needs, what its players need. Me. I am more of a fan of anthropology -- I think sociology is a quack and has failed us as a science.
Originally posted by RamenThief7 Hey hey hey Torik, the yellow shaded part said that I think there should be games that ArchAngel wants. After all, everyone does need their own game, I just don't like the concept of what I stated in the green shaded part. Plus, the blue shaded part...You think my way is the easy way out? Let me compare the blue shade part to a real life example. You take a test in school, but you decided not to study much for it. So, as a result, you get a D-. The person that doesn't learn from his mistakes will simply repeat what he's doing, and eventually fails that class. Meanwhile, the person that does learn from his mistake and reviews before the test does better and passes it. Same thing could apply to a dungeon run. In a game without a harsh death penalty, a fool would continuously do dungeon runs to try to beat it, but fails non-stop because he was simply not powerful enough. Someone who learns from his mistake finally realizes he's not strong enough, so he prepares thoroughly so he doesn't die from the next encounter (i.e. packs more potions, gets stronger gear, invites a friend or two possibly, levels up a couple to times to the point where he's as strong as the dungeon's montersters, etc.). So perhaps my way is an easy way, but it's a constructive and well thought out plan. Simply try to beat a dungeon that you obviously can't at the moment and dying continuously honestly does sound stupid to me. Preparing for your next encounter, however, can make a difference. And harsh death penalties do seem to enforce that thought... He has the right to try the attempt over and over. But hopefully, he learns from what he's doing wrong and eventually starts preparing a little more thoroughly before hand... Plus, you do realize I'm not calling ArchAngel an idiot. That was an example, I was not comparing ArchAngel to the idiot, rather showing what could possibly happen in a game without a death penalty of some sort.
I am quite a fan of doing the 'smart thing'. However, I know personally that this approach is about eliminating challenges rather than conquering them. 'Playing it smart' is less exciting and stops you from testing yourself. To me games are about testing yourself. Am I capable of taking that extra step that I did not think was in my and conquering a challenge that I thought was not possible to beat?
So if you want the players to challenge themselves, you have encourage them not to 'play it safe' all the time or the game gets dull. This is why games have 'handicaps' or give the lesser competitor a head start. If the challenge is too easy, it is not fun and it actually can cause your skills to get rusty.
Originally posted by RamenThief7 Hey hey hey Torik, the yellow shaded part said that I think there should be games that ArchAngel wants. After all, everyone does need their own game, I just don't like the concept of what I stated in the green shaded part. Plus, the blue shaded part...You think my way is the easy way out? Let me compare the blue shade part to a real life example. You take a test in school, but you decided not to study much for it. So, as a result, you get a D-. The person that doesn't learn from his mistakes will simply repeat what he's doing, and eventually fails that class. Meanwhile, the person that does learn from his mistake and reviews before the test does better and passes it. Same thing could apply to a dungeon run. In a game without a harsh death penalty, a fool would continuously do dungeon runs to try to beat it, but fails non-stop because he was simply not powerful enough. Someone who learns from his mistake finally realizes he's not strong enough, so he prepares thoroughly so he doesn't die from the next encounter (i.e. packs more potions, gets stronger gear, invites a friend or two possibly, levels up a couple to times to the point where he's as strong as the dungeon's montersters, etc.). So perhaps my way is an easy way, but it's a constructive and well thought out plan. Simply try to beat a dungeon that you obviously can't at the moment and dying continuously honestly does sound stupid to me. Preparing for your next encounter, however, can make a difference. And harsh death penalties do seem to enforce that thought... He has the right to try the attempt over and over. But hopefully, he learns from what he's doing wrong and eventually starts preparing a little more thoroughly before hand... Plus, you do realize I'm not calling ArchAngel an idiot. That was an example, I was not comparing ArchAngel to the idiot, rather showing what could possibly happen in a game without a death penalty of some sort.
I am quite a fan of doing the 'smart thing'. However, I know personally that this approach is about eliminating challenges rather than conquering them. 'Playing it smart' is less exciting and stops you from testing yourself. To me games are about testing yourself. Am I capable of taking that extra step that I did not think was in my and conquering a challenge that I thought was not possible to beat?
So if you want the players to challenge themselves, you have encourage them not to 'play it safe' all the time or the game gets dull. This is why games have 'handicaps' or give the lesser competitor a head start. If the challenge is too easy, it is not fun and it actually can cause your skills to get rusty.
Hmmm....it seems a more detailed real life example is needed here.
I tell you what, I even have an example that happened to me many years back when I was still playing Runescape.
A long time ago, something called "The dungeon of security" came out. It had powerful enemies inside, and it had 4 levels. Every time you descended a level, you have to deal with harder enemies. At the fourth level was level 80-99ish enemies. You had to pass gates in order to advance that asked you questions of how to secure your account from being hacked (thus why it is called the dungeon of security, it helped trained newbies how to make sure you weren't hacked). Now, at the very end of the fourth level was a special treasure chest that gave you a very special surprise (it ended up being special boots that powered you up, and a new emote for your character). The problem was that I was level 35, and the enemies on the fourth level could waste me in 3 hits. I kept storming that level about 7 times, each while carrying full steel equipment and some lobsters, yet I kept getting wasted simply because I wasn't ready. I wasn't well equipped, and I never planned my dungeon runs appropriately (I'll explain this later).
At this time, I believe I was 10 years old, so you can imagine I wasn't bright enough to realize immediately I needed to come better prepared. Eventually, before my 8th dungeon run, I finally wised up and prepared more thoroughly. I rose my defense level to 30 because I initially planned on wearing adamantite armor, but later decided to wear mithril armor because it was good enough to last the first 3 levels of the dungeon and it was light so I could run for a while. Then, I drank a portion of a strength potion because my friend told me it would give me more running stamina (that later proved to be false, but it ended up saving me because I had to kill an enemy 7 levels higher than me on the third level and the strength potion gave me the boost I needed to finally slay the creature). I also planned out the best time to do the dungeon run. I always did the dungeon runs on times when the servers weren't really filled up, so as a result I had to deal with dozens of skeletons that wanted me dead when I ran. So, I chose a weekend to do the fourth level dungeon run, and there was an army of high levels distracting the creatures. I finally made it to the treasure chest, realizing that my well planned out strategy was a total success. I had wasted 7 sets of steel armor, not to mention countless lobsters, and it was only until the 8th try that I finally strategically planned out my plan of attack. I got my fighting boots, had a cool and funny emote to use, and I never felt more proud of myself until then.
"Playing it safe" isn't unchallenging, it's actually quite smart, strategic, and challenging to do. Remember I was quite young at the time, so this strategy of mine was a pure stroke of brilliance I had at the time. I can honestly and personally testify that planning out strategic dungeon runs can be very challenging. Also, I later was shocked to realize how much money and time I blew on buying lobsters and crafting a full set of steel equipment. It was far too late that I realized that a strategic plan and therefore "playing it safe" is quite useful and challenging (one slip in the plan, like if I decided to use adamantite that would've not saved me from the powerful creatures and would've slowed me down, could have brought my plan down into smoldering ashes). Also, note that if the game has a harsh death penalty, you're more than likely going to want to "play it safe" or die miserably and lose a ton of precious stuff and xp (and perhaps more).
it is true that if players percieve a risk as being above a certain threshold then a lot of them will simply avoid it completely rather than figure out a way to beat it.
However some of that could be fixed by design. For example you could have a system of "stances" for all players and these stances might go "very defensive", "defensive", "balanced", "offensive", "very offensive". The "very defensive" stance might involve giving up any attack in exchange for a very substantial defense bonus that could keep you alive for a short while against a much tougher mob - long enough for you to run away. So if you came across a mob you weren't sure of you'd switch to very defensive before attacking and then if it was too tough you could sprint away.
So a game with a high death penalty may need to provide ways to avoid dying if it wants to attract numbers.
So a game with a high death penalty may need to provide ways to avoid dying if it wants to attract numbers.
At which point in time, you don't have a high death penalty, do you?
The reality is, if you make death hurt too much, people are either going to go find another game or they're going to refuse to fight mobs that have any significant chance of killing them. That means instead of fighting red mobs, most people are going to fight green ones. Their XP is going to go up much slower, driving away even more people from the game and destroying the in-game economy. The whole game will skew to the lower levels because virtually no one will really push their characters to do things they might die from.
So a game with a high death penalty may need to provide ways to avoid dying if it wants to attract numbers.
At which point in time, you don't have a high death penalty, do you?
The reality is, if you make death hurt too much, people are either going to go find another game or they're going to refuse to fight mobs that have any significant chance of killing them. That means instead of fighting red mobs, most people are going to fight green ones. Their XP is going to go up much slower, driving away even more people from the game and destroying the in-game economy. The whole game will skew to the lower levels because virtually no one will really push their characters to do things they might die from.
Sounds like an excellent way to kill an MMO.
Of course you do.
The point would be so you can scout out the level of risk. For instance (assuming nasty death penalty):
Player goes into new dungeon and sees a mob down a passage and doesn't know there's two more round the corner in social range.
Option 1: The player attacks the first mob, gets jumped by the other two and dies trying to run away. Two or three experiences like this or getting one-shotted by red mobs and most players eventually give up trying anything where they don't know the risk in advance.
Option 2: The player switches to the very defensive mode before attacking the single mob and gets jumped by the other two but the defensive bonus gives them the chance to get away.
Option 3: There's only one mob but the player doesn't know how tough it is so they switch to very defensive and attack. If the mob is still hitting them hard in that mode then the player knows they need to run away. If it's not so bad then they switch up from very defensive to defensive and see what that's like - maybe they start to get hit a bit too hard and their attack is a bit too weak so they decide to bug out or maybe it's 50/50 and for one type of player those are bugging out odds as well while another player might decide to risk it.
The stance idea is just one example of how players could test risk without dying and then decide if that risk is too high or not.
A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
Never beat the boss and never has a chance to get the cool loot is punishment enough. Anything else is just annoyance.
People learned by wiping. Let them wipe with no consequences and time loss is quite enough.
Originally posted by RamenThief7 Hmmm....it seems a more detailed real life example is needed here. I tell you what, I even have an example that happened to me many years back when I was still playing Runescape. A long time ago, something called "The dungeon of security" came out. It had powerful enemies inside, and it had 4 levels. Every time you descended a level, you have to deal with harder enemies. At the fourth level was level 80-99ish enemies. You had to pass gates in order to advance that asked you questions of how to secure your account from being hacked (thus why it is called the dungeon of security, it helped trained newbies how to make sure you weren't hacked). Now, at the very end of the fourth level was a special treasure chest that gave you a very special surprise (it ended up being special boots that powered you up, and a new emote for your character). The problem was that I was level 35, and the enemies on the fourth level could waste me in 3 hits. I kept storming that level about 7 times, each while carrying full steel equipment and some lobsters, yet I kept getting wasted simply because I wasn't ready. I wasn't well equipped, and I never planned my dungeon runs appropriately (I'll explain this later). At this time, I believe I was 10 years old, so you can imagine I wasn't bright enough to realize immediately I needed to come better prepared. Eventually, before my 8th dungeon run, I finally wised up and prepared more thoroughly. I rose my defense level to 30 because I initially planned on wearing adamantite armor, but later decided to wear mithril armor because it was good enough to last the first 3 levels of the dungeon and it was light so I could run for a while. Then, I drank a portion of a strength potion because my friend told me it would give me more running stamina (that later proved to be false, but it ended up saving me because I had to kill an enemy 7 levels higher than me on the third level and the strength potion gave me the boost I needed to finally slay the creature). I also planned out the best time to do the dungeon run. I always did the dungeon runs on times when the servers weren't really filled up, so as a result I had to deal with dozens of skeletons that wanted me dead when I ran. So, I chose a weekend to do the fourth level dungeon run, and there was an army of high levels distracting the creatures. I finally made it to the treasure chest, realizing that my well planned out strategy was a total success. I had wasted 7 sets of steel armor, not to mention countless lobsters, and it was only until the 8th try that I finally strategically planned out my plan of attack. I got my fighting boots, had a cool and funny emote to use, and I never felt more proud of myself until then. "Playing it safe" isn't unchallenging, it's actually quite smart, strategic, and challenging to do. Remember I was quite young at the time, so this strategy of mine was a pure stroke of brilliance I had at the time. I can honestly and personally testify that planning out strategic dungeon runs can be very challenging. Also, I later was shocked to realize how much money and time I blew on buying lobsters and crafting a full set of steel equipment. It was far too late that I realized that a strategic plan and therefore "playing it safe" is quite useful and challenging (one slip in the plan, like if I decided to use adamantite that would've not saved me from the powerful creatures and would've slowed me down, could have brought my plan down into smoldering ashes). Also, note that if the game has a harsh death penalty, you're more than likely going to want to "play it safe" or die miserably and lose a ton of precious stuff and xp (and perhaps more).
Actually I think that this story fully supports my view on the issue.
You were given the opportunity to try the encounter over and over, each time learning more about it untill you realized that the problem was not your execution of the strategy but rather your strategy itself. With a much harsher death penatly it would have taken you much longer to realize this and you might have given up on the dungeon before you had a chance to learn it. By repeating the encounter over and over, you realized that you moved too slow and that there were too many enemies to handle on your own.
I would not call what you did 'playing it safe'. You saw a challenge, tried different stategies and then found the one that worked. 'Playing it safe' would be skipping the dungeon until you were so high level that you would have walked through it unimpended.
This was an encounter where you could not beat it by just 'bashing your head into the wall'. You could have tried it a 100 times but not beaten it if you did not learn from it. It took you 7 failures to learn from it but it could have taken you 1 or 1000. The actual death penalty would not affect whether you succeeded or not as long as each time you were genuinely trying to beat it (ie no goofing off).
Originally posted by mortharx I guess they are pretty HARDCORE at schools, because if you fail you have to do the test again or in worst case redo the whole course and the retards never graduate. SO SCHOOLS ARE HARDCORE Damn those schools are a WASTE OF TIME! What a stupid SYSTEM INDEED!
Great example, considering how popular and fun school is. Oh, wait...
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by RamenThief7 Hmmm....it seems a more detailed real life example is needed here. I tell you what, I even have an example that happened to me many years back when I was still playing Runescape. A long time ago, something called "The dungeon of security" came out. It had powerful enemies inside, and it had 4 levels. Every time you descended a level, you have to deal with harder enemies. At the fourth level was level 80-99ish enemies. You had to pass gates in order to advance that asked you questions of how to secure your account from being hacked (thus why it is called the dungeon of security, it helped trained newbies how to make sure you weren't hacked). Now, at the very end of the fourth level was a special treasure chest that gave you a very special surprise (it ended up being special boots that powered you up, and a new emote for your character). The problem was that I was level 35, and the enemies on the fourth level could waste me in 3 hits. I kept storming that level about 7 times, each while carrying full steel equipment and some lobsters, yet I kept getting wasted simply because I wasn't ready. I wasn't well equipped, and I never planned my dungeon runs appropriately (I'll explain this later). At this time, I believe I was 10 years old, so you can imagine I wasn't bright enough to realize immediately I needed to come better prepared. Eventually, before my 8th dungeon run, I finally wised up and prepared more thoroughly. I rose my defense level to 30 because I initially planned on wearing adamantite armor, but later decided to wear mithril armor because it was good enough to last the first 3 levels of the dungeon and it was light so I could run for a while. Then, I drank a portion of a strength potion because my friend told me it would give me more running stamina (that later proved to be false, but it ended up saving me because I had to kill an enemy 7 levels higher than me on the third level and the strength potion gave me the boost I needed to finally slay the creature). I also planned out the best time to do the dungeon run. I always did the dungeon runs on times when the servers weren't really filled up, so as a result I had to deal with dozens of skeletons that wanted me dead when I ran. So, I chose a weekend to do the fourth level dungeon run, and there was an army of high levels distracting the creatures. I finally made it to the treasure chest, realizing that my well planned out strategy was a total success. I had wasted 7 sets of steel armor, not to mention countless lobsters, and it was only until the 8th try that I finally strategically planned out my plan of attack. I got my fighting boots, had a cool and funny emote to use, and I never felt more proud of myself until then. "Playing it safe" isn't unchallenging, it's actually quite smart, strategic, and challenging to do. Remember I was quite young at the time, so this strategy of mine was a pure stroke of brilliance I had at the time. I can honestly and personally testify that planning out strategic dungeon runs can be very challenging. Also, I later was shocked to realize how much money and time I blew on buying lobsters and crafting a full set of steel equipment. It was far too late that I realized that a strategic plan and therefore "playing it safe" is quite useful and challenging (one slip in the plan, like if I decided to use adamantite that would've not saved me from the powerful creatures and would've slowed me down, could have brought my plan down into smoldering ashes). Also, note that if the game has a harsh death penalty, you're more than likely going to want to "play it safe" or die miserably and lose a ton of precious stuff and xp (and perhaps more).
Actually I think that this story fully supports my view on the issue.
You were given the opportunity to try the encounter over and over, each time learning more about it untill you realized that the problem was not your execution of the strategy but rather your strategy itself. With a much harsher death penatly it would have taken you much longer to realize this and you might have given up on the dungeon before you had a chance to learn it. By repeating the encounter over and over, you realized that you moved too slow and that there were too many enemies to handle on your own.
I would not call what you did 'playing it safe'. You saw a challenge, tried different stategies and then found the one that worked. 'Playing it safe' would be skipping the dungeon until you were so high level that you would have walked through it unimpended.
This was an encounter where you could not beat it by just 'bashing your head into the wall'. You could have tried it a 100 times but not beaten it if you did not learn from it. It took you 7 failures to learn from it but it could have taken you 1 or 1000. The actual death penalty would not affect whether you succeeded or not as long as each time you were genuinely trying to beat it (ie no goofing off).
Well, you do know that this story also supports my view on challenge as well.
You know, we may both have valid views on challenge.
Mine involves "playing it safe' and observing situations to avoid getting killed (because of a harsh death penalty, but this could apply to any game).
Yours involves finding a way to overcome a problem
Perhaps our theories mingle together well.
(Also, I still see "playing it safe" as being challenging and smart)
Comments
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.
If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.
If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.
If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.
If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.
Heh heh heh...I'll say this right now. DO NOT say that yellow shaded part to the 500k subscriptions of FF XI or the EVE Online crowd. I mean it, just simply avoid saying that part to said people.
By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).
By the way, that green shaded part, I'll explain this a little better. Do you actually think a person failing a dungeon the 100-upteenth time because he thinks he's making progress is actually good, when the person should realize his level is far too low to survive the dungeon? Think carefully to what you just agreed to.
I'll be sure not to :P.
I think it really depends on the penalty. An XP loss does convey some challenge because it is difficult avoiding it. You can't really slap around and still get stuff done, because if you die too much you'll end up going no where. I'm not sure how harsh FFXI's XP loss is, so I can't really say if it is something that would just extend time overall (because unless you're dying a hundred times you'll still progress, just a lot slower).
An item loss seems a bit different for me. It feels more like an annoyance because you have to spend a bunch of time replacing that gear. With that said I think EVE does it well where it allows you to insure your ship. Then again that game is something entirely different, and PvP is a bit more "realistic" in the sense that you have a point where you won't want to send out more ships and just cut your losses.
I guess I've just seen too many games that were easy and masqueraded that fact with a piss poor death penalty system.
I don't know, I think there certainly is a fine line to it. I do admire someone who will keep on trying -- and from a development point of view this is a great thing to have because it really ups the longevity. Still I understand what you are saying, although I've done things before in WoW that I would never have tried if a harsh death penalty was intact. (like trying to solo elites, ect.)
So I think I can see some good uses of death penalty, however it (obviously) needs to have the game built around it. I also still prefer, at least right now, PvP games without a very harsh penalty so that it doesn't keep you out of the action too long. Aion's penalty is perfect for me because it is skill based (you need a good K:D ratio in order to progress and get gear) but it won't keep you out of the fight for long at all.
I also think that death penalty makes more sense in a PvE game, or a game such as EVE. Not so much in other games.
Old School EQ 1.
Anyway, to help out what >>>I<<< meant by hardcore, I'll define it:
By hardcore death, I meant permadeath, as I was referring to the Diablo 2 term, as it is the most common game to have such a system (yet is not an MMO).
As for EQ death, I simply found it too strict, but NOT hardcore. I find WoW/AoC death meaningless.
What I'm looking for is the possibility of a game where the death penalty is without Exp loss, or it's equivalent. Most have replaced this with outirght time-sinks, but the sting just is not the same. I think death should be more than WoW, but only as tough as EQ if death is fairly infrequent. I would also like to see a form of story implementation as to why each player is immortal.
Unfortunately Everquest doesn't exist anymore. What is left is a ugly patched up mess that tried to copy newer games. Everquest lost everything that made it unique. Everquest is no longer the experience it once was. Classes have become trivalized with removal of game mechanics. Factions mean nothing. Lore is horrible now. The graphics do not match through out the entire game. Everquest doesn't even have anything left to call a meaningful penalty for dying.
Also Sony is trying to get people to pay World of Warcraft prices 15/month PLUS they added an item shop for the final nail in the coffin.
Hi, I've been around these forums for a while but never registered to post, but this topic I find quite interesting so I'll just say what I think.
First of all I think that death system shouldn't be any extreme option.
So now I think we'd all agree that neither white nor black fits best, so the question is: which shade of grey, which option in between do we want?
Well that's the point. There's not one single death penalty system for every game. Why? Because games are different in so many ways, that the penalty applied would in some games be seen as irrelevant and in others as extremely hard. So I'd like to make a few points considering the different options mentioned along this thread given how a game can be:
That's about it for now, have many more things to comment, but will leave it for later. Don't be hard
PS: Having all those possibilities (item loss, money, experience) doesn't mean that all of them should be used. It could probably be a mixture of them adjusting each.
There is nothing, repeat nothing whatsoever, challenging about a death penalty itself. Avoiding dying is the challenge. The penalty is created by the devs to slow you down. That's all it does. Make your progress take longer. Whether it's through loss of exp or irem decay or anything else, it's designed to be punitive. In the ideal, it's to make you a better player. In reality, it's there to slow you down, and make things take longer.
For me, this is simply an annoyance. And I see zero reason to intentionally put annoyances into a game, unless it is to slow you down, cause then I can see why devs would want it in an MMO.
This has nothing to do with hardcore/casual. The game determines the difficulty of the encounter, that's where the challenge lies. But once you are defeated, the penalty is simply that. How can you be challenged after you are beaten?
I'm trying to remember about it (didn't play AoC in forever), but didn't the penalty its self not do too much?
No, just for an example: if you were 10th lvl and had a hard time fighting a 12th lvl mob with out a death penalty. If you died and tryed to fight a 12th lvl mob you would most likely would die. Every death penalty stacked and each one got a liitle worse each time so if you had 3 death penalties you most likely could not win against a 10th lvl mob.
..its a guideline, not a rule, as players we must remember: Its a Game.
Rob, I just wanted to say I understand and I agree for the most part for the mainstream MMORPG. I think the reason they haven't completed removed the timesink from death is for not doing content the way the developers intended(which, yes, is supposed to be time consuming). This happened a lot in new Everquest content. Very smart and capable people would figure out ways to trivialize raid content, and GM's would disallow it until the developers "fixed" it so it is "working as intended". So in essence, yes, they want to slow you down, and if you are smart and figure out a way to speed it up, they are gonna nerf it. They want you to do it the way they want you to do it, and their way is time consuming, because that keeps your sub longer.
However, comma, I still don't think you are seeing the possibilities of grief and trivialization of content that can be done through reviving at full capability, which several other posters have already elaborated on. For instance, I don't like this guy I want to pk him, but he's too high of a level. So, I will just harass him and attack him all day while he is grinding, because, hey, what difference does it make? He can't cost me gold, time, experience, or loot, so who cares. Another example: our warrior cannot tank this boss well and survive, but hey, we can res him at full health and ability, so we will just res zerg this boss. This type of strategy should only be used as a last resort, not as a fundamental way to defeat content, which is what it would become if their was no penalty. And I don't think most of us want to play a game where parties take on higher level content than they can handle because they have the ability to zerg it because they revive at full capability. And if you don't think parties and guilds would not res zerg bosses they have no business fighting yet to get powerful equipment, I think you are mistaken.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
What right do you have to tell him that he can't try the encounter over and over? If he has fun doing so then you should just butt out of his bussiness. Maybe he is actually making progress and you are just to leet to see that. That's quite an elitist and snobby attitude to have. He is actively challenging himself to beat something very hard rather than taking the easy way out as you would have him do.
I guess they are pretty HARDCORE at schools, because if you fail you have to do the test again or in worst case redo the whole course and the retards never graduate.
SO SCHOOLS ARE HARDCORE
Damn those schools are a WASTE OF TIME! What a stupid SYSTEM INDEED!
R.I.P Chikaca Whachuchu
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.
What right do you have to tell him that he can't try the encounter over and over? If he has fun doing so then you should just butt out of his bussiness. Maybe he is actually making progress and you are just to leet to see that. That's quite an elitist and snobby attitude to have. He is actively challenging himself to beat something very hard rather than taking the easy way out as you would have him do.
Hey hey hey Torik, the yellow shaded part said that I think there should be games that ArchAngel wants. After all, everyone does need their own game, I just don't like the concept of what I stated in the green shaded part.
Plus, the blue shaded part...You think my way is the easy way out? Let me compare the blue shade part to a real life example. You take a test in school, but you decided not to study much for it. So, as a result, you get a D-. The person that doesn't learn from his mistakes will simply repeat what he's doing, and eventually fails that class. Meanwhile, the person that does learn from his mistake and reviews before the test does better and passes it. Same thing could apply to a dungeon run. In a game without a harsh death penalty, a fool would continuously do dungeon runs to try to beat it, but fails non-stop because he was simply not powerful enough. Someone who learns from his mistake finally realizes he's not strong enough, so he prepares thoroughly so he doesn't die from the next encounter (i.e. packs more potions, gets stronger gear, invites a friend or two possibly, levels up a couple to times to the point where he's as strong as the dungeon's montersters, etc.). So perhaps my way is an easy way, but it's a constructive and well thought out plan. Simply try to beat a dungeon that you obviously can't at the moment and dying continuously honestly does sound stupid to me. Preparing for your next encounter, however, can make a difference. And harsh death penalties do seem to enforce that thought...
He has the right to try the attempt over and over. But hopefully, he learns from what he's doing wrong and eventually starts preparing a little more thoroughly before hand...
Plus, you do realize I'm not calling ArchAngel an idiot. That was an example, I was not comparing ArchAngel to the idiot, rather showing what could possibly happen in a game without a death penalty of some sort.
Rob, I just wanted to say I understand and I agree for the most part for the mainstream MMORPG. I think the reason they haven't completed removed the timesink from death is for not doing content the way the developers intended(which, yes, is supposed to be time consuming). This happened a lot in new Everquest content. Very smart and capable people would figure out ways to trivialize raid content, and GM's would disallow it until the developers "fixed" it so it is "working as intended". So in essence, yes, they want to slow you down, and if you are smart and figure out a way to speed it up, they are gonna nerf it. They want you to do it the way they want you to do it, and their way is time consuming, because that keeps your sub longer.
However, comma, I still don't think you are seeing the possibilities of grief and trivialization of content that can be done through reviving at full capability, which several other posters have already elaborated on. For instance, I don't like this guy I want to pk him, but he's too high of a level. So, I will just harass him and attack him all day while he is grinding, because, hey, what difference does it make? He can't cost me gold, time, experience, or loot, so who cares. Another example: our warrior cannot tank this boss well and survive, but hey, we can res him at full health and ability, so we will just res zerg this boss. This type of strategy should only be used as a last resort, not as a fundamental way to defeat content, which is what it would become if their was no penalty. And I don't think most of us want to play a game where parties take on higher level content than they can handle because they have the ability to zerg it because they revive at full capability. And if you don't think parties and guilds would not res zerg bosses they have no business fighting yet to get powerful equipment, I think you are mistaken.
A very thoughtful response. To be honest, I hadn't considered the pvp implications and I think you have a valid point there.
I'm not so sure I agree about the PvE game, though. As long as the encounter reset upon wiping, repeated zerging without changing tactics doesn't have to work.
When I was raiding in Wow, we might get to a boss room. We go in, we attempt the pre-planned strategy and we almost get the boss, but we wipe. So, everyone rezs and makes a long (and imo, pointless) run back to where we were. This took about 6 to 8 minutes. Then we go in and try again, and maybe we fail again or maybe we don't. Either way, i don't see the benefit to the players for having a penalty imposed (item decay, rez sickness) on top of the delay we were already hit with.
Now, if we went in that encounter and just tried to zerg the boss, without any preplanning, we'd never beat him, no matter how many times we tried. So, I don't think it gains the players anything to further punish them for their failure.
I can't remember considering any death system in the dozens of mmos I've played "hardcore"
First, I am starting to have problems with the term "HARDCORE" in terms of video games.
Maybe it's all about semantics. To me, Hardcore means someone is sacrificing something huge. Maybe that means staying up all night, everynight, playing a game, forgoing friends, relationships, family, job, health...
I actually remember doing corpse runs in EQ rather fondly. They were a pain in the ass, to be sure, but I played a rogue, and made a lot of money retrieving other players' corpses. After a raid wipe, I could retrieve everyones' but our guild-leader's. The boss would aggro me and kill me every time I touched the corpse. I would retrieve mine, get my stuff on, go to hers and wham, be dead and have to start all over again...
So, I think it would be an easier dialogue if we talked about what works, what doesn't and what we like and don't. Let's stay away from labeling and generalizing other players, of whom we really know nothing.
That said, I would love to try a perma-death game. If the game mechanics were like most MMOs, then I wouldn't be playing for long, though.
I would love to try a game with item loss. It's one of the things that intrigues me about Darkfall, too bad its combat mechanics look really lame.
I feel that item loss could make a game less gear-centric, and therefore not the lame, hamster-wheel lottery-themepark that seems to dominate the market.
When I ponder death penalties though, my mind doesn't stop there. I start thinking about how the combat would work, how the game would be played. I begin designing a game from the ground up. Death Penalties shouldn't be just a mindless speed bump. They need to add as much meaning to the game as all the other features...
But then what features have meaning for us? Some people only talk about ganking and twitch. Others talk about roleplaying. One of the reasons I like LotRO is the scenery, of all things, and listening to people play instruments. I like AoC because combat can be fun to watch, when my machine feels up to it... I still play EQ2 because it seems to be a solid design with a lot of things to do: raid, quest, grind, gather, craft, redecorate the house, shop and try stuff on, mentor newbies, duel, enter the arenas... No other game seems to offer such variety and still look decent doing it.
The games I play now, LotRO, AoC and EQ2, well, I hate their death penalties. More exactly, I don't really pay attention to them, because they're meaningless. They only mean the rest of the group has to wait around for an hour because they happened to lose their healer and they need to wait for her to catch up. Basically, if you lose your healer, everybody just go ahead and die, it will save time getting the group back together. And if I purposely die just to save time getting back to the quest giver, well, what does that say about the game's death penalty?
I didn't hate the penalty because it was hard, the issue I have with that penalty is that it broke immersion. If I am having to retrieve my body, then what am I right now? Here I am dragging the corpses of people to the same people... It has no reflection in reality.
I also find it interesting that we play junior sociologists when we talk about what a game needs, what its players need. Me. I am more of a fan of anthropology -- I think sociology is a quack and has failed us as a science.
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
I am quite a fan of doing the 'smart thing'. However, I know personally that this approach is about eliminating challenges rather than conquering them. 'Playing it smart' is less exciting and stops you from testing yourself. To me games are about testing yourself. Am I capable of taking that extra step that I did not think was in my and conquering a challenge that I thought was not possible to beat?
So if you want the players to challenge themselves, you have encourage them not to 'play it safe' all the time or the game gets dull. This is why games have 'handicaps' or give the lesser competitor a head start. If the challenge is too easy, it is not fun and it actually can cause your skills to get rusty.
I am quite a fan of doing the 'smart thing'. However, I know personally that this approach is about eliminating challenges rather than conquering them. 'Playing it smart' is less exciting and stops you from testing yourself. To me games are about testing yourself. Am I capable of taking that extra step that I did not think was in my and conquering a challenge that I thought was not possible to beat?
So if you want the players to challenge themselves, you have encourage them not to 'play it safe' all the time or the game gets dull. This is why games have 'handicaps' or give the lesser competitor a head start. If the challenge is too easy, it is not fun and it actually can cause your skills to get rusty.
Hmmm....it seems a more detailed real life example is needed here.
I tell you what, I even have an example that happened to me many years back when I was still playing Runescape.
A long time ago, something called "The dungeon of security" came out. It had powerful enemies inside, and it had 4 levels. Every time you descended a level, you have to deal with harder enemies. At the fourth level was level 80-99ish enemies. You had to pass gates in order to advance that asked you questions of how to secure your account from being hacked (thus why it is called the dungeon of security, it helped trained newbies how to make sure you weren't hacked). Now, at the very end of the fourth level was a special treasure chest that gave you a very special surprise (it ended up being special boots that powered you up, and a new emote for your character). The problem was that I was level 35, and the enemies on the fourth level could waste me in 3 hits. I kept storming that level about 7 times, each while carrying full steel equipment and some lobsters, yet I kept getting wasted simply because I wasn't ready. I wasn't well equipped, and I never planned my dungeon runs appropriately (I'll explain this later).
At this time, I believe I was 10 years old, so you can imagine I wasn't bright enough to realize immediately I needed to come better prepared. Eventually, before my 8th dungeon run, I finally wised up and prepared more thoroughly. I rose my defense level to 30 because I initially planned on wearing adamantite armor, but later decided to wear mithril armor because it was good enough to last the first 3 levels of the dungeon and it was light so I could run for a while. Then, I drank a portion of a strength potion because my friend told me it would give me more running stamina (that later proved to be false, but it ended up saving me because I had to kill an enemy 7 levels higher than me on the third level and the strength potion gave me the boost I needed to finally slay the creature). I also planned out the best time to do the dungeon run. I always did the dungeon runs on times when the servers weren't really filled up, so as a result I had to deal with dozens of skeletons that wanted me dead when I ran. So, I chose a weekend to do the fourth level dungeon run, and there was an army of high levels distracting the creatures. I finally made it to the treasure chest, realizing that my well planned out strategy was a total success. I had wasted 7 sets of steel armor, not to mention countless lobsters, and it was only until the 8th try that I finally strategically planned out my plan of attack. I got my fighting boots, had a cool and funny emote to use, and I never felt more proud of myself until then.
"Playing it safe" isn't unchallenging, it's actually quite smart, strategic, and challenging to do. Remember I was quite young at the time, so this strategy of mine was a pure stroke of brilliance I had at the time. I can honestly and personally testify that planning out strategic dungeon runs can be very challenging. Also, I later was shocked to realize how much money and time I blew on buying lobsters and crafting a full set of steel equipment. It was far too late that I realized that a strategic plan and therefore "playing it safe" is quite useful and challenging (one slip in the plan, like if I decided to use adamantite that would've not saved me from the powerful creatures and would've slowed me down, could have brought my plan down into smoldering ashes). Also, note that if the game has a harsh death penalty, you're more than likely going to want to "play it safe" or die miserably and lose a ton of precious stuff and xp (and perhaps more).
it is true that if players percieve a risk as being above a certain threshold then a lot of them will simply avoid it completely rather than figure out a way to beat it.
However some of that could be fixed by design. For example you could have a system of "stances" for all players and these stances might go "very defensive", "defensive", "balanced", "offensive", "very offensive". The "very defensive" stance might involve giving up any attack in exchange for a very substantial defense bonus that could keep you alive for a short while against a much tougher mob - long enough for you to run away. So if you came across a mob you weren't sure of you'd switch to very defensive before attacking and then if it was too tough you could sprint away.
So a game with a high death penalty may need to provide ways to avoid dying if it wants to attract numbers.
At which point in time, you don't have a high death penalty, do you?
The reality is, if you make death hurt too much, people are either going to go find another game or they're going to refuse to fight mobs that have any significant chance of killing them. That means instead of fighting red mobs, most people are going to fight green ones. Their XP is going to go up much slower, driving away even more people from the game and destroying the in-game economy. The whole game will skew to the lower levels because virtually no one will really push their characters to do things they might die from.
Sounds like an excellent way to kill an MMO.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
At which point in time, you don't have a high death penalty, do you?
The reality is, if you make death hurt too much, people are either going to go find another game or they're going to refuse to fight mobs that have any significant chance of killing them. That means instead of fighting red mobs, most people are going to fight green ones. Their XP is going to go up much slower, driving away even more people from the game and destroying the in-game economy. The whole game will skew to the lower levels because virtually no one will really push their characters to do things they might die from.
Sounds like an excellent way to kill an MMO.
Of course you do.
The point would be so you can scout out the level of risk. For instance (assuming nasty death penalty):
Player goes into new dungeon and sees a mob down a passage and doesn't know there's two more round the corner in social range.
Option 1: The player attacks the first mob, gets jumped by the other two and dies trying to run away. Two or three experiences like this or getting one-shotted by red mobs and most players eventually give up trying anything where they don't know the risk in advance.
Option 2: The player switches to the very defensive mode before attacking the single mob and gets jumped by the other two but the defensive bonus gives them the chance to get away.
Option 3: There's only one mob but the player doesn't know how tough it is so they switch to very defensive and attack. If the mob is still hitting them hard in that mode then the player knows they need to run away. If it's not so bad then they switch up from very defensive to defensive and see what that's like - maybe they start to get hit a bit too hard and their attack is a bit too weak so they decide to bug out or maybe it's 50/50 and for one type of player those are bugging out odds as well while another player might decide to risk it.
The stance idea is just one example of how players could test risk without dying and then decide if that risk is too high or not.
For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
Never beat the boss and never has a chance to get the cool loot is punishment enough. Anything else is just annoyance.
People learned by wiping. Let them wipe with no consequences and time loss is quite enough.
Actually I think that this story fully supports my view on the issue.
You were given the opportunity to try the encounter over and over, each time learning more about it untill you realized that the problem was not your execution of the strategy but rather your strategy itself. With a much harsher death penatly it would have taken you much longer to realize this and you might have given up on the dungeon before you had a chance to learn it. By repeating the encounter over and over, you realized that you moved too slow and that there were too many enemies to handle on your own.
I would not call what you did 'playing it safe'. You saw a challenge, tried different stategies and then found the one that worked. 'Playing it safe' would be skipping the dungeon until you were so high level that you would have walked through it unimpended.
This was an encounter where you could not beat it by just 'bashing your head into the wall'. You could have tried it a 100 times but not beaten it if you did not learn from it. It took you 7 failures to learn from it but it could have taken you 1 or 1000. The actual death penalty would not affect whether you succeeded or not as long as each time you were genuinely trying to beat it (ie no goofing off).
Great example, considering how popular and fun school is. Oh, wait...
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Actually I think that this story fully supports my view on the issue.
You were given the opportunity to try the encounter over and over, each time learning more about it untill you realized that the problem was not your execution of the strategy but rather your strategy itself. With a much harsher death penatly it would have taken you much longer to realize this and you might have given up on the dungeon before you had a chance to learn it. By repeating the encounter over and over, you realized that you moved too slow and that there were too many enemies to handle on your own.
I would not call what you did 'playing it safe'. You saw a challenge, tried different stategies and then found the one that worked. 'Playing it safe' would be skipping the dungeon until you were so high level that you would have walked through it unimpended.
This was an encounter where you could not beat it by just 'bashing your head into the wall'. You could have tried it a 100 times but not beaten it if you did not learn from it. It took you 7 failures to learn from it but it could have taken you 1 or 1000. The actual death penalty would not affect whether you succeeded or not as long as each time you were genuinely trying to beat it (ie no goofing off).
Well, you do know that this story also supports my view on challenge as well.
You know, we may both have valid views on challenge.
Mine involves "playing it safe' and observing situations to avoid getting killed (because of a harsh death penalty, but this could apply to any game).
Yours involves finding a way to overcome a problem
Perhaps our theories mingle together well.
(Also, I still see "playing it safe" as being challenging and smart)