If a Mind Game doesn't have a penalty, then it's pretty much worthless. Relate them to sports all you want, find me a popular mind game that people play ALOT that doesn't have a penalty of some sort (that's not time).
Chess.
Me thinks the death penalty in Chess starts right from the beginning ,if your opponent is good he eats you alive piece by piece and slowly and theres nothing you can do.
When a Chess player loses a piece, there's no "You lose your next 3 turns" penalty preventing him from playing his moves.
When a Chess player loses a match, there's no "You can't play the game for 7 days" penalty preventing him from immediately playing the game again.
Yet if designed by certain MMORPG players, these penalties would exist.
Make a mistake in the beginning of the game and your opponent PK´s your Queen ,you will lose alot of moves and strategies,for example.
When he loses the whole match he "feels" that he wasnt good enough,he can challenge that same opponent for rematch for 100 times ,and lose every time and he "feels" even more beaten.
in MMORPG your character doesnt "feel" anything ,so how to make him "feel" something,is how to make you/the player feel something.
The thing is, though your analaogy works, it just might not resonate with various people. Imagine being a person who would never play poker because they would never play with real money. Now imagine the use of fake "for fun money" and now they will play because they aren't losing something of value. Your analogy works only to those people who are inclined to gamble and lose or win real money. But believe it or not, many people don't gamble real money. Myself included. I work(ed) hard for my money and I sure as hell would never put any of it in a poker game.
Well put Sovrath and I agree with you. I never gamble for money, I simply refuse it. I play games with my friends and I strongly believe in never putting money between friends and family, this also goes for money used in a game or in betting.
But we play the card game Whist and we do so without money. We calculate points and nominate a winner for the evening. This is fine, because we play for the honour of winning.
I find that much more full-filling, the honour and knowing I was best and that I improved myself since last time and learned new tricks.
What I think is interesting is that there really is a disconnect between players who want/need harsh penalties and players who feel that failing is enough.
In the end, if I die, then I've failed. That has huge repercussions for me. I feel that very deeply. But it seems that there are others who do not and who require some other external penalty in order to drive them to "not fail" or "be a better player" as some have put it.
There definitely is more going on here than just people wanting things easy and people wanting things to have greater meaning.
I think what we are hitting on here is that people not only a difference between preferred penalties but something about how we all think of failure and how it reflects on us.
Because as others have mentioned, sports doesn't have a harsh penalty for losing. You dont' lose a game and then go to the next game with negative points that you have to make up from the previous game.
You don't miss a pass and then remove players from the field until you are left with only a few on your side.
If one loses in sports then it means something. Why doesn't this also translate into meaning for video game players?
And again, to iterate, I think the wow and lotro death penalties, for me, are the harshest.
In lotro you get a debuff and your stats are lowered. I have definitely noticed a decreas in efficacy if I go back out and fight with this debuff. So it usually means that I'm not doing anything for 10 minutes waiting for it to be removed. In WoW I have to run back to my body. I've always found that very tedious. there was a time in wow where I died twice. The Third time I just hit "quit". End game for me.
Yet with Aion, I feel the death penalty, it stings and yet I have no problems continuing to play. Same with games with xp debt (my preference) or xp loss.
I hated xp loss but it wasn't tedious for me.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
In trying to explain to some folks on this board the importance, in regards to immersion and risk and reward, for having a death (or failure) penalty, I think I have finally come up with an analogy: Imagine playing poker with play money. Doesn't really hurt when you lose, but doesn't really mean as much when you win. Now, imagine playing poker (small stakes) with real money. Losing sort of stings, but winning has a thrill; gets the adrenaline pumping. Such a game would draw a person in more than the former example. A penalty for failure is critical for MMO's to have immersion and for rewards to fully be appreciated.
Immersion is a choice you make.
Risk? There isn't a real risk in a video game. Nobody is going to come to your house and break your legs. You won't lose your house. Ok you might lose your wife.
I wish people would learn, for once, that what they need to motivate them is not what I need to motivate me.
If you insist on a harsh penalty for death, reroll your toon.
Do not insist that your perspective MUST be mine by imposing a death penalty on me.
Even in WoW, with next to nothing in terms of actual penalties for death, it stings ME. I hate having to pay for repairs, I hate having the rhythm of my play disrupted. That's enough for me to avoid dying.
That others don't feel this way does not bother me, but for some reason, the death cultists of MMOs insist that everyone must suffer as they do when they die online.
Reroll your toon if WoW's death penalties (such as they are) are not enough for you.
Go ahead. I dare you.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
I think some sort of death penalty is needed to deter people from just running in and dieing, respawn and do it again. This type of scenario just makes dieing meaningless and I think is the true handholding much discussed on these boards. WOW battlegrounds PVP is a good example of this. No matter how bad a player is he can get all the goodies if he is willing to respawn and go back for more time and again. On the other hand, a death penalty to the extreme of people quitting the game is not desirable either, for the player or game company. So a penalty is necessary to make death undesirable but cannot be so extreme that people get discouraged. I find the death penalty in LOTRO to be sufficient. The debuff hurts and the repair bills are no fun either.
It's actually a 'gambler' vs 'gamer' argument. The gamblers cannot understand how the gamers can get immersed and give their best when a challenge does not involve risking stuff outside the actual challenge. The gamers do not understand why the gamblers cannot get enjoyment out of the purity of the challenge itself and instead want to muddy it up by bringing in outside restrictions into the challenge. Someone else mentioned how death penalties motivate them to do better when trying to beat content. The gamer in me does not understand why that person was not trying their best in the first place. If they need a death penalty to motivate them then they do not actually get the enjoyment out of the challenge but instead the risk itself.
Almost. You fail to examine how 'gambling' is very, very much a part of the 'game'. Dissecting the two aspects is important to fully understand the general topic at play, but in this example, the one encompasses the other. 'To bluff': just this *alone* is a huge, huge component to poker play, and is 100% absent in an environment that doesn't have at the very least a modest element of gambling (OREOs or quarters or whatever else is chosen).
Referencing your second paragraph: the gamer in you fails to recognize that you, or anyone else for that matter, NEVER gives 100% when there are no odds stacked against you. In the professional world of athletics, there's an old saying: 'the best training is competition'. I feel that applies. Even the most type A driven personality needs odds to be stacked against them to truly be 'at their best'. It's the nature of who we are as people, not just as gamers.
Were one can trace the origin about enjoyment is rather irrelivant. Again, a senario about one example encompassing the other: part of the challenge is the risk involved.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc. We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be. So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away. - MMO_Doubter
People who seek heavy penalties in their entertainment, which in MMO terms means excessive wasted time, their real life has less meaning than the game. Or, their time has little value so using it up RE-playing a game is acceptable. Ask yourself this? After playing a pickup game of B-ball and losing, would you force yourself to sit around for an hour before playing again? Do you destroy the ball and buy a new one? Do you rip the net down, then go to Sports Authority or Dicks and buy a new one before playing again? Nope, you just play again and you have fun. Why punish yourself for losing? It would seem absurd to do it in real life, so why is it OK in a videogame? If you need to be kicked in the virtual nuts to feel accomplishment, all the power to ya.
Why does everyone use the sports analogy?
I'm Athletic, but not everyone plays sports or enjoys sports. I Golf alot, but that's about it. Even there, we usually bet money, or play beer chug scramble. (you lose the putt, you chug)
I play alot of poker and have been betting since I was 14. Pretty damn good at Stud & Draw, not so much at Hold'em.
Honestly, how many people on this forum can say they went out and played Basketball in the last month? Or Football (exluding Thanksgiving) or Soccer?
You're on a video game forum, relating them to sports.
Mind Games > Sports
If a Mind Game doesn't have a penalty, then it's pretty much worthless. Relate them to sports all you want, find me a popular mind game that people play ALOT that doesn't have a penalty of some sort (that's not time).
Unless you get physically tired, releasing endorphins, playing video games. The sports Analogy is freaking pathetic. Where as, if you're going to lose something in a video game that you know that's going to take something away, you're going to get high on adrenaline. If you can get an adrenaline rush from no penalties or anything of the sort, good for you. I don't and neither do the other PVPers who want the penalties.
I don't think one has to have played sports to equate the two. I have played sports and understand the meaning of failure in sports.
I have also played monopoly, chess, checkers and other things that don't have a death penalty.
Unless you get physically tired, releasing endorphins, playing video games. The sports Analogy is freaking pathetic. Where as, if you're going to lose something in a video game that you know that's going to take something away, you're going to get high on adrenaline. If you can get an adrenaline rush from no penalties or anything of the sort, good for you. I don't and neither do the other PVPers who want the penalties.
This is where the dissconnect is. Not all people want, care or are affected in the same way by the whole adrenaline rush thing.
Not everyone values this. Because you do value it and becuase it is a part of who you are, you are equating that this is an important component. But it's not, at least not for everyone.
Remove the adrenaline rush from any game and I'd be quite fine as it has no meaning for me. Nothing. The sense of actual failure has greater meaning for me by magnitudes.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Question: Should single player games have a death penalty? I run out and start shooting stuff up in Mass Effect, but someone pops up, hits me with a neutralize effect and then shoots me dead. I pop back up at the last point I saved and charge right back into combat without fear because if I die, I can load again. I don't lose anything except time under this system. Yet it still makes for a fun single player experience.
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
I like fairly harsh death-penalties in MMO's. It adds to the thrill and immersion of the game. For some people the fun is just from the gameplay, for others the immersion factor is where a lot of the spice comes from that seperates a good game from a amazing one. Harsh death penalties add to the immersiveness, so it's more appealing to those of us that like that sort of thing.
I usually enjoy some kind of death penalty, even if it is a small annoyance because I've noticed people tend to play smarter if there is more at stake. Instead of just foolishing rushing 20 mobs to try and kill 1 before they die, they might actually clear a few mobs first.
This isn't really a problem when someone is soloing because that is their choice to be an idiot and only adversely affect themselves. In group play though, I've noticed without a death penalty, people tend to do more foolish things because if they die, no big deal, nothing lost, and if they wipe the group and have to run back, well, I see a lot of times, person just leaves the group.
I liked how daoc did it best. If I die, I lose exp, got a rez sickness that I paid a little to restore constitution. If I ran back to where I died, there was a grave that I could pray at to get most of my exp back. There was still a little exp lost, but not much really to cause people to not take chances while playing. It did stop (usually) people from foolishly dying over and over because exp loss would add up then.
It just seemed the gameplay with those games that had loss was more intense with better gameplay from people. I attribute that to the system. Of course, it could just be the people that play today are mostly idiots that can't play well, think without a guide and have the attention span of a peanut. I hope it is not the latter, hehe.
A good death penalty would be to just lose a ""LITTLE"" experience and lots of VIRTUAL WORLD - MATERIAL VALUES such as items and money YOU HAVE ON YOUR PERSON.
So you level a lot and you get your precious treasure chest with lots of money, you don't want someone to PK you and steal your precious treasure chest filled with money, you attempt to escape through the forest avoiding mobs and finding a player escorted caravan to protect which just happened to come by ;p.
If you end up dying you just lose your precious treasure chest and a little experience.
Just make the player lose items and money, this would make economy more interesting as weapons would turn into often bought items instead of the holy demon fairy mage sword of algalightanon that you cannot ever lose and just sell it to the nearest NPC when you see the next best thing...
I agree taking away time from the player is just silly, plus this would add vandalism and constant use of banks.
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
Make a mistake in the beginning of the game and your opponent PK´s your Queen ,you will lose alot of moves and strategies,for example. When he loses the whole match he "feels" that he wasnt good enough,he can challenge that same opponent for rematch for 100 times ,and lose every time and he "feels" even more beaten. in MMORPG your character doesnt "feel" anything ,so how to make him "feel" something,is how to make you/the player feel something. somekind of death penalty is the key
You cannot compare what the player feels in a Chess game to what the character feels in an MMORPG. The character, like the chess Queen, feels nothing.
Nobody cares what the inanimate tools feel. They never feel anything.
All that matters is what the player feels. In both games, losing will result in the feeling of loss. This includes the pain of minor mistakes (choosing the wrong ability to cast, or moving a pawn out too far), the temporary setback of dying (or losing a piece) as well as the larger loss of losing the battle (losing the chess game.)
Yeah losing your queen sucks. So does dying in a WOW BG, because your opponents get a chance to score points during the ~30 seconds you're out of commission. In neither case would it make sense to increase the pain of the loss, because the pain of the loss is significant enough already.
"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 Torik For a 'gamer' the 'win every hand' comment is ludicrous. If you lost he fight you the fight you lost, there is no win there. You only win if you actually win the fight. Everything else is a loss.
Alright, I don't want to get into a big arguement over the perfection or lack of perfection in the analogy so let's just look at the way things really work in these games.
You run up to a jabberwocky and start fighting.
You kill it and win whatever rewards there are to win. Experience or loot or both or something else.
or
It kills you...BUT...you don't lose anything. You can't lose anything because the game doesn't allow it. You didn't kill the creature but you didn't lose anything either. Your character pops back up and you run right back and fight it some more with no fear because you know you can't lose anything.
So, with no penalty you might not always win but you certainly never lose. So basically you will always either win or break even but you will never lose.
Put a serious death penalty in there and if the Jabberwocky kills you you lose something. Suddenly it has all become much more intense and interesting. Suddenly you have reason to fear death at the claws of the Jabberwocky, a strange and novel sensation for the recent generation of gamers I'm sure but one they might come to appreciate if they ever experienced it.
If he kills me I lose the satisfaction of winning.
It has a lot to do with what your 'default state' is. For me 'beat the challenge' is the default state with 'beat the challenge in an awesome way' being the positive state and 'not beat the challenge' being the negative state. So by not beating the challenge I automatically experience failure and a loss. Any additional death penalty only makes the loss bigger but does not create it. ie a death penalt is merely a 'lose more' thing.
But let's be honest here; we all know that we're going to "beat the challenge". You know you're going to kill the Jabberwocky, if not on your first try then on a subsequent attempt.
So let's say that the reward for killing the Jabberwocky is 1000 experience points.
If there is no experience loss for dying then you know that you will get those 1000 points, you cannot fail to get them because you WILL kill the jabberwocky sooner or later. This is where I have trouble understanding that "satisfaction of winning" that you get when you know that ultimately you can only win and never lose.
But now let's say that dying incurrs a loss of 2000 experience points. NOW you can lose. Now you need to kill the Jabberwocky at least three times more often than he kills you in order to get a net gain. At 1 to 1 you will be losing progress. At 2 to 1 you will only be breaking even. Now winning your 1000 points is really winning because the other option (losing) exists. Winning can't really be winning if there is no chance to lose. If you can't lose then winning isn't really winning...it's just...being there. Like getting a trophy just for showing up.
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Very funny clip, made my day. Thanks for the link.
It's funny, there's one thing you mentioned above that got me thinking why, for me, Aion's death penalty (as it stands now) is the perfect death penallty for me.
The two things I value most in an mmo is experience and money. and my time of course which is why if I'm not having fun I don't play the game. But that's another topic...
I enjoy leveling and I enjoy leveling goals. I NEED money in game but HATE making money in games. Just hate it. So any money I make by selling my drops or vendor trash is far more valuable to me than money made by someone crafting. They know they are going to have a steady stream of it. I, as I am involved in the arts and have made some money in it, know that the next paycheck may or may not come if I don't get a gig. Or drop. In this case. So each drop is precious. All that vendor trash is precous.
So then I die.
I have lost xp. I have a choice. I can keep the xp debt (and presumably work it off) or I can pay to have it removed. Keeping the debt will make me fall behind a bit and paying for it, which in Aion can get expensive if one is not paying attention will lower my ever changing wallet.
Both things I value, both things I don't want to lose and I'm given a choice, at the time, of the lesser of two evils.
Whereas, as you mentioned and along the same lines of another poster in this thread, the death penalty for LOTRO gives the debuff which is 10 minutes of me checking my e-mail coming to this site, etc. That takes me out of game and if I'm out of game I might as well be doing anything else out of game.
But you are correct, there needs to be a death penalty of some sort otherwise it's a poor man's teleport. that is never a good thing.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
Dp scares off Players in PvP. And in a MMO, mass scale (AKA More People) the more epic the battles. So I dont want people running off because they dont want to risk. I want them to stay and fight till they Lose, or Get Bored.
Originally posted by Neanderthal But let's be honest here; we all know that we're going to "beat the challenge". You know you're going to kill the Jabberwocky, if not on your first try then on a subsequent attempt. So let's say that the reward for killing the Jabberwocky is 1000 experience points. If there is no experience loss for dying then you know that you will get those 1000 points, you cannot fail to get them because you WILL kill the jabberwocky sooner or later. This is where I have trouble understanding that "satisfaction of winning" that you get when you know that ultimately you can only win and never lose. But now let's say that dying incurrs a loss of 2000 experience points. NOW you can lose. Now you need to kill the Jabberwocky at least three times more often than he kills you in order to get a net gain. At 1 to 1 you will be losing progress. At 2 to 1 you will only be breaking even. Now winning your 1000 points is really winning because the other option (losing) exists. Winning can't really be winning if there is no chance to lose. If you can't lose then winning isn't really winning...it's just...being there. Like getting a trophy just for showing up.
I know no such thing. I might presume that I will beat the Jabberwocky because my ego tells me that but it is far from certain. I might just not have the skill to beat it at my level/gear. There are plenty of encounters I could never beat in games.
My 'satisfaction of winning' comes from the fact that I improved myself and became better. I set myself a goal that did not seem possible at first but I applied myself and proved myself wrong. If I cannot beat that challenge I lose that satisfaction and that is worse than any death penalty a video game could impose.
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Very funny clip, made my day. Thanks for the link.
It's funny, there's one thing you mentioned above that got me thinking why, for me, Aion's death penalty (as it stands now) is the perfect death penallty for me.
The two things I value most in an mmo is experience and money. and my time of course which is why if I'm not having fun I don't play the game. But that's another topic...
I enjoy leveling and I enjoy leveling goals. I NEED money in game but HATE making money in games. Just hate it. So any money I make by selling my drops or vendor trash is far more valuable to me than money made by someone crafting. They know they are going to have a steady stream of it. I, as I am involved in the arts and have made some money in it, know that the next paycheck may or may not come if I don't get a gig. Or drop. In this case. So each drop is precious. All that vendor trash is precous.
So then I die.
I have lost xp. I have a choice. I can keep the xp debt (and presumably work it off) or I can pay to have it removed. Keeping the debt will make me fall behind a bit and paying for it, which in Aion can get expensive if one is not paying attention will lower my ever changing wallet.
Both things I value, both things I don't want to lose and I'm given a choice, at the time, of the lesser of two evils.
Whereas, as you mentioned and along the same lines of another poster in this thread, the death penalty for LOTRO gives the debuff which is 10 minutes of me checking my e-mail coming to this site, etc. That takes me out of game and if I'm out of game I might as well be doing anything else out of game.
But you are correct, there needs to be a death penalty of some sort otherwise it's a poor man's teleport. that is never a good thing.
Yeah, and I would agree that too harsh of a death penalty would suck as well. I'm certainly not a fan of perma-death or anything. I also think that full-loot pvp rules are too harsh and i'm sure I would get called a "carebear" by others for that. I guess it all depends were you think the line needs to be drawn.
Originally posted by cukimunga Oh let me rephrase that, Im not a competitive person with all things. I guess im just weird that if there is no real penalty for dying or losing it just doesn't really feel worth trying harder because if I die or lose there are no repercussion. But if a game has a penalty for dying or losing I will put more effort into not dying because I don't want to die or lose because I know the repercussions are not good. Im competitive when there is something at stake like a harsh death penalty, getting hurt or sitting out for a while. Because I enjoy these games I want to keep playing them as often as possible and I get the satisfaction of over coming that risk of not being set back or having to sit out or getting hurt.
It's a difference in mindset. We play to win, you play not to lose.
Isn't that the same thing?
But with games with little to no death penalties the only thing you really lose is time, which is like a few minutes. So basically the loss is so trivial in a MMORPG because your putting in hundreds of hours in gameplay. Your basically breaking even or winning and "Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat" to quote Malcolm S. Forbes.
It's actually a 'gambler' vs 'gamer' argument. The gamblers cannot understand how the gamers can get immersed and give their best when a challenge does not involve risking stuff outside the actual challenge. The gamers do not understand why the gamblers cannot get enjoyment out of the purity of the challenge itself and instead want to muddy it up by bringing in outside restrictions into the challenge. Someone else mentioned how death penalties motivate them to do better when trying to beat content. The gamer in me does not understand why that person was not trying their best in the first place. If they need a death penalty to motivate them then they do not actually get the enjoyment out of the challenge but instead the risk itself.
Almost. You fail to examine how 'gambling' is very, very much a part of the 'game'. Dissecting the two aspects is important to fully understand the general topic at play, but in this example, the one encompasses the other. 'To bluff': just this *alone* is a huge, huge component to poker play, and is 100% absent in an environment that doesn't have at the very least a modest element of gambling (OREOs or quarters or whatever else is chosen).
Referencing your second paragraph: the gamer in you fails to recognize that you, or anyone else for that matter, NEVER gives 100% when there are no odds stacked against you. In the professional world of athletics, there's an old saying: 'the best training is competition'. I feel that applies. Even the most type A driven personality needs odds to be stacked against them to truly be 'at their best'. It's the nature of who we are as people, not just as gamers.
Were one can trace the origin about enjoyment is rather irrelivant. Again, a senario about one example encompassing the other: part of the challenge is the risk involved.
Bluffing is merely a strategic element of gameplay. You weigh the risks and rewards and decide if you can fool the opponent when the risk is against you. It is actually an aspect of the 'gamer' side of poker rather than the 'gambler' side. There is no bluffing in roulette but there is plenty of bluffing in sports.
Your 'stacking the odds' example has nothing to do with gambling. It simply means that people motivate tend to motivate themselves more when the challenge is greater and barely reachable.
Once again I bring up the point that in the big time poker tournaments the 'death penalty' aspects of poker are elminated and replaced with a 'win and you get the prize, lose and you walk away with nothing' approach of sports.
You have to have a good Death Penalty. At least for me it is very important.
I cannot enjoy winning unless I have a chance to lose. I grew up playing hockey and I love the sport because you have a chance to lose if you are not on top of your game. Without that chance to lose then winning would mean nothing.
Same for MMORPGS, leveling, killing a named, ect means nothing if I do not feel scared of failing (Dieing).
EQ1 had it right IMO, I feared death in that game and yet I still took risks knowing that I could lose hours of work if I died. It made it rewarding for me when I won because I knew I could have lose and paid for it.
A good death penalty makes players play smarter IMO. I do not know how many times I have seen players including myself pull of some crazy shit because we feared dieing so much in EQ1.
Originally posted by cukimunga Oh let me rephrase that, Im not a competitive person with all things. I guess im just weird that if there is no real penalty for dying or losing it just doesn't really feel worth trying harder because if I die or lose there are no repercussion. But if a game has a penalty for dying or losing I will put more effort into not dying because I don't want to die or lose because I know the repercussions are not good. Im competitive when there is something at stake like a harsh death penalty, getting hurt or sitting out for a while. Because I enjoy these games I want to keep playing them as often as possible and I get the satisfaction of over coming that risk of not being set back or having to sit out or getting hurt.
It's a difference in mindset. We play to win, you play not to lose.
Isn't that the same thing?
But with games with little to no death penalties the only thing you really lose is time, which is like a few minutes. So basically the loss is so trivial in a MMORPG because your putting in hundreds of hours in gameplay. Your basically breaking even or winning and "Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat" to quote Malcolm S. Forbes.
The bigger the challenge, the easier it is to fail. If you then beaten the challenge, you have proven that you have improved yourself aka 'risen to the challenge'. Failing the challenge is not trivial since it will remain with you until you finally manage to beat it. Death penalties are trivial in comparison because they will be replaced in time but the actual failure can only be expunged by actually beating the challenge.
You have to have a good Death Penalty. At least for me it is very important. I cannot enjoy winning unless I have a chance to lose. I grew up playing hockey and I love the sport because you have a chance to lose if you are not on top of your game. Without that chance to lose then winning would mean nothing.
That's not a death penalty. A 'death penalty' in that example would be if after every loss the coach broke your hockey stick and you had to go buy a new one.
Personally, I can learn not to repeat my mistakes without getting kicked in the bollocks hit with a "penalty". Having to start an encounter all over again from the beginning is enough of a "fail".
Though I am mildly impressed at how some companies manage(d) to disguise pointless timesinks as death penalties and convince(d) players that they "added to the challenge".
On a related note, I have a bridge to sell in Brooklyn. PM me if interested.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Comments
Chess.
Me thinks the death penalty in Chess starts right from the beginning ,if your opponent is good he eats you alive piece by piece and slowly and theres nothing you can do.
When a Chess player loses a piece, there's no "You lose your next 3 turns" penalty preventing him from playing his moves.
When a Chess player loses a match, there's no "You can't play the game for 7 days" penalty preventing him from immediately playing the game again.
Yet if designed by certain MMORPG players, these penalties would exist.
Make a mistake in the beginning of the game and your opponent PK´s your Queen ,you will lose alot of moves and strategies,for example.
When he loses the whole match he "feels" that he wasnt good enough,he can challenge that same opponent for rematch for 100 times ,and lose every time and he "feels" even more beaten.
in MMORPG your character doesnt "feel" anything ,so how to make him "feel" something,is how to make you/the player feel something.
somekind of death penalty is the key
Generation P
Well put Sovrath and I agree with you. I never gamble for money, I simply refuse it. I play games with my friends and I strongly believe in never putting money between friends and family, this also goes for money used in a game or in betting.
But we play the card game Whist and we do so without money. We calculate points and nominate a winner for the evening. This is fine, because we play for the honour of winning.
I find that much more full-filling, the honour and knowing I was best and that I improved myself since last time and learned new tricks.
What I think is interesting is that there really is a disconnect between players who want/need harsh penalties and players who feel that failing is enough.
In the end, if I die, then I've failed. That has huge repercussions for me. I feel that very deeply. But it seems that there are others who do not and who require some other external penalty in order to drive them to "not fail" or "be a better player" as some have put it.
There definitely is more going on here than just people wanting things easy and people wanting things to have greater meaning.
I think what we are hitting on here is that people not only a difference between preferred penalties but something about how we all think of failure and how it reflects on us.
Because as others have mentioned, sports doesn't have a harsh penalty for losing. You dont' lose a game and then go to the next game with negative points that you have to make up from the previous game.
You don't miss a pass and then remove players from the field until you are left with only a few on your side.
If one loses in sports then it means something. Why doesn't this also translate into meaning for video game players?
And again, to iterate, I think the wow and lotro death penalties, for me, are the harshest.
In lotro you get a debuff and your stats are lowered. I have definitely noticed a decreas in efficacy if I go back out and fight with this debuff. So it usually means that I'm not doing anything for 10 minutes waiting for it to be removed. In WoW I have to run back to my body. I've always found that very tedious. there was a time in wow where I died twice. The Third time I just hit "quit". End game for me.
Yet with Aion, I feel the death penalty, it stings and yet I have no problems continuing to play. Same with games with xp debt (my preference) or xp loss.
I hated xp loss but it wasn't tedious for me.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Immersion is a choice you make.
Risk? There isn't a real risk in a video game. Nobody is going to come to your house and break your legs. You won't lose your house. Ok you might lose your wife.
I wish people would learn, for once, that what they need to motivate them is not what I need to motivate me.
If you insist on a harsh penalty for death, reroll your toon.
Do not insist that your perspective MUST be mine by imposing a death penalty on me.
Even in WoW, with next to nothing in terms of actual penalties for death, it stings ME. I hate having to pay for repairs, I hate having the rhythm of my play disrupted. That's enough for me to avoid dying.
That others don't feel this way does not bother me, but for some reason, the death cultists of MMOs insist that everyone must suffer as they do when they die online.
Reroll your toon if WoW's death penalties (such as they are) are not enough for you.
Go ahead. I dare you.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I think some sort of death penalty is needed to deter people from just running in and dieing, respawn and do it again. This type of scenario just makes dieing meaningless and I think is the true handholding much discussed on these boards. WOW battlegrounds PVP is a good example of this. No matter how bad a player is he can get all the goodies if he is willing to respawn and go back for more time and again. On the other hand, a death penalty to the extreme of people quitting the game is not desirable either, for the player or game company. So a penalty is necessary to make death undesirable but cannot be so extreme that people get discouraged. I find the death penalty in LOTRO to be sufficient. The debuff hurts and the repair bills are no fun either.
Almost. You fail to examine how 'gambling' is very, very much a part of the 'game'. Dissecting the two aspects is important to fully understand the general topic at play, but in this example, the one encompasses the other. 'To bluff': just this *alone* is a huge, huge component to poker play, and is 100% absent in an environment that doesn't have at the very least a modest element of gambling (OREOs or quarters or whatever else is chosen).
Referencing your second paragraph: the gamer in you fails to recognize that you, or anyone else for that matter, NEVER gives 100% when there are no odds stacked against you. In the professional world of athletics, there's an old saying: 'the best training is competition'. I feel that applies. Even the most type A driven personality needs odds to be stacked against them to truly be 'at their best'. It's the nature of who we are as people, not just as gamers.
Were one can trace the origin about enjoyment is rather irrelivant. Again, a senario about one example encompassing the other: part of the challenge is the risk involved.
That is exactly right, and we're not saying NO to save WoW, because it is already a lost cause. We are saying NO to dissuade the next group of greedy suits who decide to emulate Blizzard and Cryptic, etc.
We can prevent some of the future games from spewing this crap, but the sooner we start saying no, the better the results will be.
So - Stand up, pull up your pants, and walk away.
- MMO_Doubter
Why does everyone use the sports analogy?
I'm Athletic, but not everyone plays sports or enjoys sports. I Golf alot, but that's about it. Even there, we usually bet money, or play beer chug scramble. (you lose the putt, you chug)
I play alot of poker and have been betting since I was 14. Pretty damn good at Stud & Draw, not so much at Hold'em.
Honestly, how many people on this forum can say they went out and played Basketball in the last month? Or Football (exluding Thanksgiving) or Soccer?
You're on a video game forum, relating them to sports.
Mind Games > Sports
If a Mind Game doesn't have a penalty, then it's pretty much worthless. Relate them to sports all you want, find me a popular mind game that people play ALOT that doesn't have a penalty of some sort (that's not time).
Unless you get physically tired, releasing endorphins, playing video games. The sports Analogy is freaking pathetic. Where as, if you're going to lose something in a video game that you know that's going to take something away, you're going to get high on adrenaline. If you can get an adrenaline rush from no penalties or anything of the sort, good for you. I don't and neither do the other PVPers who want the penalties.
I don't think one has to have played sports to equate the two. I have played sports and understand the meaning of failure in sports.
I have also played monopoly, chess, checkers and other things that don't have a death penalty.
Unless you get physically tired, releasing endorphins, playing video games. The sports Analogy is freaking pathetic. Where as, if you're going to lose something in a video game that you know that's going to take something away, you're going to get high on adrenaline. If you can get an adrenaline rush from no penalties or anything of the sort, good for you. I don't and neither do the other PVPers who want the penalties.
This is where the dissconnect is. Not all people want, care or are affected in the same way by the whole adrenaline rush thing.
Not everyone values this. Because you do value it and becuase it is a part of who you are, you are equating that this is an important component. But it's not, at least not for everyone.
Remove the adrenaline rush from any game and I'd be quite fine as it has no meaning for me. Nothing. The sense of actual failure has greater meaning for me by magnitudes.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
While I agree that single-player games are fun without a death penalty, there are single-player games that do have a harsh death penalty. Demon souls is a good recent example of this and check out the reviews for that game. It really makes the game unique and quite thrilling.
I like fairly harsh death-penalties in MMO's. It adds to the thrill and immersion of the game. For some people the fun is just from the gameplay, for others the immersion factor is where a lot of the spice comes from that seperates a good game from a amazing one. Harsh death penalties add to the immersiveness, so it's more appealing to those of us that like that sort of thing.
I usually enjoy some kind of death penalty, even if it is a small annoyance because I've noticed people tend to play smarter if there is more at stake. Instead of just foolishing rushing 20 mobs to try and kill 1 before they die, they might actually clear a few mobs first.
This isn't really a problem when someone is soloing because that is their choice to be an idiot and only adversely affect themselves. In group play though, I've noticed without a death penalty, people tend to do more foolish things because if they die, no big deal, nothing lost, and if they wipe the group and have to run back, well, I see a lot of times, person just leaves the group.
I liked how daoc did it best. If I die, I lose exp, got a rez sickness that I paid a little to restore constitution. If I ran back to where I died, there was a grave that I could pray at to get most of my exp back. There was still a little exp lost, but not much really to cause people to not take chances while playing. It did stop (usually) people from foolishly dying over and over because exp loss would add up then.
It just seemed the gameplay with those games that had loss was more intense with better gameplay from people. I attribute that to the system. Of course, it could just be the people that play today are mostly idiots that can't play well, think without a guide and have the attention span of a peanut. I hope it is not the latter, hehe.
A good death penalty would be to just lose a ""LITTLE"" experience and lots of VIRTUAL WORLD - MATERIAL VALUES such as items and money YOU HAVE ON YOUR PERSON.
So you level a lot and you get your precious treasure chest with lots of money, you don't want someone to PK you and steal your precious treasure chest filled with money, you attempt to escape through the forest avoiding mobs and finding a player escorted caravan to protect which just happened to come by ;p.
If you end up dying you just lose your precious treasure chest and a little experience.
Just make the player lose items and money, this would make economy more interesting as weapons would turn into often bought items instead of the holy demon fairy mage sword of algalightanon that you cannot ever lose and just sell it to the nearest NPC when you see the next best thing...
I agree taking away time from the player is just silly, plus this would add vandalism and constant use of banks.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1321-Demons-Souls
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You cannot compare what the player feels in a Chess game to what the character feels in an MMORPG. The character, like the chess Queen, feels nothing.
Nobody cares what the inanimate tools feel. They never feel anything.
All that matters is what the player feels. In both games, losing will result in the feeling of loss. This includes the pain of minor mistakes (choosing the wrong ability to cast, or moving a pawn out too far), the temporary setback of dying (or losing a piece) as well as the larger loss of losing the battle (losing the chess game.)
Yeah losing your queen sucks. So does dying in a WOW BG, because your opponents get a chance to score points during the ~30 seconds you're out of commission. In neither case would it make sense to increase the pain of the loss, because the pain of the loss is significant enough already.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Alright, I don't want to get into a big arguement over the perfection or lack of perfection in the analogy so let's just look at the way things really work in these games.
You run up to a jabberwocky and start fighting.
You kill it and win whatever rewards there are to win. Experience or loot or both or something else.
or
It kills you...BUT...you don't lose anything. You can't lose anything because the game doesn't allow it. You didn't kill the creature but you didn't lose anything either. Your character pops back up and you run right back and fight it some more with no fear because you know you can't lose anything.
So, with no penalty you might not always win but you certainly never lose. So basically you will always either win or break even but you will never lose.
Put a serious death penalty in there and if the Jabberwocky kills you you lose something. Suddenly it has all become much more intense and interesting. Suddenly you have reason to fear death at the claws of the Jabberwocky, a strange and novel sensation for the recent generation of gamers I'm sure but one they might come to appreciate if they ever experienced it.
If he kills me I lose the satisfaction of winning.
It has a lot to do with what your 'default state' is. For me 'beat the challenge' is the default state with 'beat the challenge in an awesome way' being the positive state and 'not beat the challenge' being the negative state. So by not beating the challenge I automatically experience failure and a loss. Any additional death penalty only makes the loss bigger but does not create it. ie a death penalt is merely a 'lose more' thing.
But let's be honest here; we all know that we're going to "beat the challenge". You know you're going to kill the Jabberwocky, if not on your first try then on a subsequent attempt.
So let's say that the reward for killing the Jabberwocky is 1000 experience points.
If there is no experience loss for dying then you know that you will get those 1000 points, you cannot fail to get them because you WILL kill the jabberwocky sooner or later. This is where I have trouble understanding that "satisfaction of winning" that you get when you know that ultimately you can only win and never lose.
But now let's say that dying incurrs a loss of 2000 experience points. NOW you can lose. Now you need to kill the Jabberwocky at least three times more often than he kills you in order to get a net gain. At 1 to 1 you will be losing progress. At 2 to 1 you will only be breaking even. Now winning your 1000 points is really winning because the other option (losing) exists. Winning can't really be winning if there is no chance to lose. If you can't lose then winning isn't really winning...it's just...being there. Like getting a trophy just for showing up.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1321-Demons-Souls
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Very funny clip, made my day. Thanks for the link.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1321-Demons-Souls
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Very funny clip, made my day. Thanks for the link.
It's funny, there's one thing you mentioned above that got me thinking why, for me, Aion's death penalty (as it stands now) is the perfect death penallty for me.
The two things I value most in an mmo is experience and money. and my time of course which is why if I'm not having fun I don't play the game. But that's another topic...
I enjoy leveling and I enjoy leveling goals. I NEED money in game but HATE making money in games. Just hate it. So any money I make by selling my drops or vendor trash is far more valuable to me than money made by someone crafting. They know they are going to have a steady stream of it. I, as I am involved in the arts and have made some money in it, know that the next paycheck may or may not come if I don't get a gig. Or drop. In this case. So each drop is precious. All that vendor trash is precous.
So then I die.
I have lost xp. I have a choice. I can keep the xp debt (and presumably work it off) or I can pay to have it removed. Keeping the debt will make me fall behind a bit and paying for it, which in Aion can get expensive if one is not paying attention will lower my ever changing wallet.
Both things I value, both things I don't want to lose and I'm given a choice, at the time, of the lesser of two evils.
Whereas, as you mentioned and along the same lines of another poster in this thread, the death penalty for LOTRO gives the debuff which is 10 minutes of me checking my e-mail coming to this site, etc. That takes me out of game and if I'm out of game I might as well be doing anything else out of game.
But you are correct, there needs to be a death penalty of some sort otherwise it's a poor man's teleport. that is never a good thing.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1321-Demons-Souls
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Haha. His reviews are always hillarious.
It does have a high meta-critic score and is up for game of the year in most places though .
Dp scares off Players in PvP. And in a MMO, mass scale (AKA More People) the more epic the battles. So I dont want people running off because they dont want to risk. I want them to stay and fight till they Lose, or Get Bored.
I know no such thing. I might presume that I will beat the Jabberwocky because my ego tells me that but it is far from certain. I might just not have the skill to beat it at my level/gear. There are plenty of encounters I could never beat in games.
My 'satisfaction of winning' comes from the fact that I improved myself and became better. I set myself a goal that did not seem possible at first but I applied myself and proved myself wrong. If I cannot beat that challenge I lose that satisfaction and that is worse than any death penalty a video game could impose.
lol, well then this review might be for you.
Regardless of one thinks of this guy, I don't take him seriously at all and his reviews are hilarious.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1321-Demons-Souls
some language, might not be work safe, yadda, yadda, yadda...
Very funny clip, made my day. Thanks for the link.
It's funny, there's one thing you mentioned above that got me thinking why, for me, Aion's death penalty (as it stands now) is the perfect death penallty for me.
The two things I value most in an mmo is experience and money. and my time of course which is why if I'm not having fun I don't play the game. But that's another topic...
I enjoy leveling and I enjoy leveling goals. I NEED money in game but HATE making money in games. Just hate it. So any money I make by selling my drops or vendor trash is far more valuable to me than money made by someone crafting. They know they are going to have a steady stream of it. I, as I am involved in the arts and have made some money in it, know that the next paycheck may or may not come if I don't get a gig. Or drop. In this case. So each drop is precious. All that vendor trash is precous.
So then I die.
I have lost xp. I have a choice. I can keep the xp debt (and presumably work it off) or I can pay to have it removed. Keeping the debt will make me fall behind a bit and paying for it, which in Aion can get expensive if one is not paying attention will lower my ever changing wallet.
Both things I value, both things I don't want to lose and I'm given a choice, at the time, of the lesser of two evils.
Whereas, as you mentioned and along the same lines of another poster in this thread, the death penalty for LOTRO gives the debuff which is 10 minutes of me checking my e-mail coming to this site, etc. That takes me out of game and if I'm out of game I might as well be doing anything else out of game.
But you are correct, there needs to be a death penalty of some sort otherwise it's a poor man's teleport. that is never a good thing.
Yeah, and I would agree that too harsh of a death penalty would suck as well. I'm certainly not a fan of perma-death or anything. I also think that full-loot pvp rules are too harsh and i'm sure I would get called a "carebear" by others for that. I guess it all depends were you think the line needs to be drawn.
It's a difference in mindset. We play to win, you play not to lose.
Isn't that the same thing?
But with games with little to no death penalties the only thing you really lose is time, which is like a few minutes. So basically the loss is so trivial in a MMORPG because your putting in hundreds of hours in gameplay. Your basically breaking even or winning and "Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat" to quote Malcolm S. Forbes.
Almost. You fail to examine how 'gambling' is very, very much a part of the 'game'. Dissecting the two aspects is important to fully understand the general topic at play, but in this example, the one encompasses the other. 'To bluff': just this *alone* is a huge, huge component to poker play, and is 100% absent in an environment that doesn't have at the very least a modest element of gambling (OREOs or quarters or whatever else is chosen).
Referencing your second paragraph: the gamer in you fails to recognize that you, or anyone else for that matter, NEVER gives 100% when there are no odds stacked against you. In the professional world of athletics, there's an old saying: 'the best training is competition'. I feel that applies. Even the most type A driven personality needs odds to be stacked against them to truly be 'at their best'. It's the nature of who we are as people, not just as gamers.
Were one can trace the origin about enjoyment is rather irrelivant. Again, a senario about one example encompassing the other: part of the challenge is the risk involved.
Bluffing is merely a strategic element of gameplay. You weigh the risks and rewards and decide if you can fool the opponent when the risk is against you. It is actually an aspect of the 'gamer' side of poker rather than the 'gambler' side. There is no bluffing in roulette but there is plenty of bluffing in sports.
Your 'stacking the odds' example has nothing to do with gambling. It simply means that people motivate tend to motivate themselves more when the challenge is greater and barely reachable.
Once again I bring up the point that in the big time poker tournaments the 'death penalty' aspects of poker are elminated and replaced with a 'win and you get the prize, lose and you walk away with nothing' approach of sports.
You have to have a good Death Penalty. At least for me it is very important.
I cannot enjoy winning unless I have a chance to lose. I grew up playing hockey and I love the sport because you have a chance to lose if you are not on top of your game. Without that chance to lose then winning would mean nothing.
Same for MMORPGS, leveling, killing a named, ect means nothing if I do not feel scared of failing (Dieing).
EQ1 had it right IMO, I feared death in that game and yet I still took risks knowing that I could lose hours of work if I died. It made it rewarding for me when I won because I knew I could have lose and paid for it.
A good death penalty makes players play smarter IMO. I do not know how many times I have seen players including myself pull of some crazy shit because we feared dieing so much in EQ1.
Sooner or Later
It's a difference in mindset. We play to win, you play not to lose.
Isn't that the same thing?
But with games with little to no death penalties the only thing you really lose is time, which is like a few minutes. So basically the loss is so trivial in a MMORPG because your putting in hundreds of hours in gameplay. Your basically breaking even or winning and "Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat" to quote Malcolm S. Forbes.
The bigger the challenge, the easier it is to fail. If you then beaten the challenge, you have proven that you have improved yourself aka 'risen to the challenge'. Failing the challenge is not trivial since it will remain with you until you finally manage to beat it. Death penalties are trivial in comparison because they will be replaced in time but the actual failure can only be expunged by actually beating the challenge.
That's not a death penalty. A 'death penalty' in that example would be if after every loss the coach broke your hockey stick and you had to go buy a new one.
Personally, I can learn not to repeat my mistakes without getting kicked in the bollocks hit with a "penalty". Having to start an encounter all over again from the beginning is enough of a "fail".
Though I am mildly impressed at how some companies manage(d) to disguise pointless timesinks as death penalties and convince(d) players that they "added to the challenge".
On a related note, I have a bridge to sell in Brooklyn. PM me if interested.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift