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A fresh take on permadeath- What do you think of this concept?
Angelof2070
Member Posts: 224
Please considere these [five] concepts first, then read on.
First, the MMO concept has very rapid character development to soften the harsh blow of permadeath. If you do not die easily, you can quickly achieve a very strong character. If the skill levels are 1 to 100, then it only takes a few hours to reach 30 skill level, less than a week playtime to reach high lvl/skill (80's) give or take. Must be very careful and lucky to live that long though. Life is cheap.
Second, the MMO concept prevents repetitive newbie quests by allowing players to start off with non-newbie characters, such as if the skill levels are 1 to 100, then the players don't have to continuously repeat 1-10 or 1-20, and after awhile achieve the ability to start at lvl 20 (20% strength, not newbie, but not strong either.) Thus preventing what would be a "omg, I'm a newb again!!" experience plagued with the boredom and frustration of having no real skills.
Third, there are many classes, races, specializations, and character skills/abilities to choose from- helping to soften the blow of repetition in making the same character over and over. Small differences such as choosing a warrior who uses 2-handed swords instead of the spears you started with, but later chooses to specialize in dual wielding and enjoy it. You die, so the next time rolled you changed your warrior to 2-handed axes, plate armor, and defense abilities. You don't like those, so you revert to your choice in dual wielding, mobility abilities, and chain armor. "I missed my swords! Hahaha, yea!" With multiple (but very small) alterations in character customization, it helps to soften repetition and helps to slowly develop and refine a player's favorite types of class, race, specialization, skills, items, and look.
Fourth, you are allowed Five characters instead of the normal one per player-slot. These five characters are directed by a "Lord" (You, Non-playable) who collects Items, Gold, Crafting Skills (which are never lost), etc. These five characters though can and will permanently die upon death.
Permadeath!
Life is cheap, Experience is fast, Character development is full of small variety and what feels like endless combinations.
Warriors, Bards, Thieves, Mages, Clerics, Hybrid Classes- all permanently dying upon death.... with a twist.
Fifth, and most importantly.
% Chance to not lose your character.
For example, you take a ride on a boat to several islands to explore. On your boat ride, there is a % chance to be attacked by Pirates, Small Sea Serpents, a giant Kraken, to be mesmerized by Sirens, or to enjoy a peaceful (and very fishing-friendly) boatride.
You are defeated, whether that is by being stabbed by pirates or failing to stop the Sirens from causing your ship to crash into the rocks. Perhaps depending on how you died, or perhaps solely based on random chance, there is a % of death, or % of another form of temporary loss.
1) Shipwrecked - The sirens caused the boat to crash. Your screen goes dark and your character awakens adrift a beach on a random tiny deserted island. You have to play a mini-game to chop tropical trees, collect coconuts, and "avoid the monkeys" to build a raft. Once you gathered and built the raft, you zone back to your capital City (safe haven).
2) Ransom- The pirates killed many of your friends, but your character wasn't one of them. They captured you and now your character is UNPLAYABLE (on the character select screen, he is shown tied up with a sign on his neck) the sign indicates how much gold you have to pay to get the character back. Don't want to pay it? Click delete! But hey, if you really like him- at least he wasn't permanently killed! Pay the ransom (which is based on character's power) and get your character back, along with the "Ransomed!" title.
3) Mortally Wounded- Your character wasn't killed, but was mortally wounded. It will take [x] amount of time before you play him again. Want the slot back? Delete him. Want the character back? You have to wait (x) days. Try playing the other 4 for awhile. Healing items, upgrading to or buying a hospital tent, and quests can shorten this time. If your warrior is mortally wounded, perhaps your Ranger can go on a quest to harvest special healing herbs.
4) Imprisoned- Same as 3) Mortally Wounded (Time Based) but can go on thief-like quests with other characters to "Break them out".
5) Poisoned- Your character is Mortally Wounded and you can't play him- but worse! There is poison in his veins. You only have (x) amount of days to complete an antidote quest (with another character) before he is dead. If time runs out- permadeath. Get your Cleric out to complete this quest or let your warrior die.
6) Death- Permadeath. The most common occurance. He's gone. Forever. Start a new one.
These are just examples, but perhaps if killed there is only an 80% chance of permadeath, and a 20% chance of a unique quest or resource based save. Pay 10,000 gold ransom (resource), collect 20 herbs (resource), Quest to find the antidote, or use an empty character slot to create a [Rogue], level him up, and free your warrior from [Prison]!
What do you think of this version of Perma-death?
Comments
In addition to have a % chance to not lose your character, i think combat should be slower and escape should be easier. These would keep the number of deaths lower than usual (which is low as it is).
I think this permadeath idea would be a good alternative to raiding. It isn't meant for newbies or as the main mode of playing. It would be a good concept as an alternative mode when you get bored of the mainstream mode of playing.
no matter what the form of it is Perma deth is not what I would call an enjoyable gameplay mechanic. Perma death would limit sub numbers and be financial poison for a mmo to implement. Having to restart from square one (even with some sort of boost up and fast skill gain) would get just as tiresome as re-rolling a ton of alts. I just don't see the appeal.
Finally all mmo's do have perma death - it is called the character delete button.
I have to agree. Companys first of all tend to gain the money and if you put yourself as a company such a limitation in customer amount its a poison and it would be very hard to gain support (money) for your project. I simply think this niche isnt viable.
PS: As there are always people who love to destroy the gameplay of others (exploits, hacks etc), there would be a higher % amount of them in such a game.
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Perma-death will always have a fatal flaw... it's perma-death.
The vast majority of people who play MMOs would be extremely disenfranchised with any game that uses any sort of perma-death mechanic.
Making character progression fast is too easy-mode... one of the things I enjoy about MMOs is building my character... I don't want to reach end-game after only a few hours of playing... the storyline would be crap. Having a wide variety of character classes should be standard in ANY MMO and I feel is the shortfall of many games out today.
I do like your a few of your "non perma-death" ideas like being shipwrecked... I think something like that added to a game would make for some great intrigue and danger when exploring that is not PvP-related.
Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience.
Permadeath = Fail
Get used to it.
I play games for fun, and in my opinion, this ain't fun.
I'm old school, and I'm telling you permadeath is a bad mechanic. It removes the one thing MMO's are based around, attachment to your avatar.
The entire pvp crowd doesn't want meaningful, challenging pvp. They want new ways to make other peoples gameplay worse. The entire pvp crowd is just terribly childish IMO. I remember back in the day we used to want to help each other all the time. Now people just look for new ways to backstab other people. This is what happens when you make mmorpg's for people that don't play mmorpg's.
If you want this type of thing, go back to FPS where you belong.
There are many games with perma-death and a fast-track advancement already in them.
I can recall many first person shooter games that you start out with a crappy weapon, and you can very quickly find a better one OR power up the more you kill.
But once you die, you have to start from scratch.
If it takes less than 8 hours to go from 20 skill to 80 skill, and skill is gained via normal gameplay and not "grinding so you can EVENTUALLY play" and there is a % chance to NOT suffer permanent death, I do not see this alienating players.
Who would get upset over losing an 80 skill character when you have 4 others at 40-80 skill, and by losing that character it only requires a few hours of normal, fun play to reach back where you started off- but this time with a chance to respec what you regretted in character development, or to try something new because you're bored of your old choice in weapon, class, etc.
If players see death as common and life as cheap, expecting to eventually die and have to start over- but leveling up to an adequate level is almost immediate, I firmly believe that the satisfaction of accomplishment despite great risk would MORE than make up for the loss and frustration of soft permadeath.
You never lose your bank. You never lose your gold. You never lose your core LORD's experience (which is limited, but prevents your characters from having to be "Newbs" over and over by starting them out as adequate characters) and all you lose is your character (and perhaps the items on him, which are NOT too valuable to lose and are cheaply bought or crafted, similar to UO or Darkfall's full loot system), you get to constantly tweak and respec your character (but at a price) and are significantly rewarded for surviving.
And to be honest, the amount of time it would take to make 5 characters, all EXACTLY the same and level them all up to very strong skills- it would be significantly less than to roll an alt on any other MMORPG and level them up to 19-24 just so you can PvP in the battlegrounds with an alt. And if you can make 50 characters adequate to PvP in the time it would take you to level up an alt in another MMORPG to 19-24 to complete in battleground PvP- by the time you ran out of your 50 characters bc of permadeath, you would already be bored with that Tier of PvP.
Not to mention that unlike other MMORPG's, you could easily reach the most fun abilities more quickly (but they're always fun bc you dont always have them, or the powerful character that is great in PvP) and unlike other MMORPG's there is only ONE Tier, which means if you DO make 5 high level characters, it not only took you only 10% of the time it would take you to make ONE high level character for Tier 1 PvP, but you would have five VERY powerful characters in PvP where the majority of players are "goons" who just start a new guy, develop him a tiny bit, and send him immediately off to PvP.
Nothing is cooler than being able to both have a balanced game where anyone can play fair AND allow players to be "The Powerful Archmage" who single-handedly turns the tide of battle because his enemies are all weak pre-made goons and he took a few hours out of his day to develop 3 slots of characters to be 80 skill Wizards.
Think of it this way:
Regular MMORPG's require 24 hours invested of grinding to reach Tier1 PvP. Now you have to cross your finger to not fight against twinks who are fundedby max level alts.
In a permadeath MMORPG, it requires you 4 hours to develop 3 Wizards to above average strength. Now you not only don't have to cross your finger because the game encourages most players to just "Dine and Dash" with pre-made "goon" characters (It's still fun, and possible to win with characters you DIDNT develop and thus DONT lose anything with, especially if you use teamwork) but it also means you can actually STOP the twinks and end their life. "You want to be more powerful than everyone else? Well fine, but I'm sick of you killing us! You're dead and there are real consequences!"
How happy would I be if I could take away the life of a twink rogue or hunter in WoW so they would have to start all over because they were assholes who would use level 40 bandages at level 18. And to do that with a no-loss pre-made character and two of my friends? Oh, the risk is 0% loss, but the gain is a good % twink death. The twink risks a lot too, but is rewarded with a higher % of winning, and thus even MORE power and even MORE gold.
I like your concept and would gladly play it if the game world has enough to make me want to keep making toons however if you can implment a skill which a caster could rez you and keep you alive thus keeping your toon for a little longer thats good too
I really like your ideas about non-perma death; the ransom, shipwreck etc. Rezzing and teleporting across a map has always been the most immersion-killing thing for me.
One other twist could be a system where other players could be alerted that you were unconscious, captured, etc.
Basically, someone in a zone, or within earshot, or eyesight could get a popup. 'Slappybear has been captured by pirates. Try to rescue them? Accept. Decline'
Would have to be some checks to prevent abuse, like not much experience award for rescues etc. But would be vastly more heroic than killing rats for gold.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
A few things to make the idea viable...
1) No open pvp.
2) No levels, all skill based, monster difficulty clearly visible.
3) Sandbox.
4) Your "Lord" must progress, and the characters you play, "his subjects" must be able to be hired at bigger and better skills the more powerful your Lord becomes.
MMORPG's do not have to become First Person Shooters to take on some very good ideas or game concepts derived from FPS games.
MMORPG's also don't have to have character development solely in only ONE form (one character's LEVEL)
This MMORPG is still an MMORPG not only because of the play style, but the game concepts encourage multiple avenues of Character Development.
You develop 5 characters who can lose their development.
But you also develop 1 unplayable character who gains skill that determines the starting skills/stats/abilities of ALL of your 5 disposable characters.
If you want to have a quick, fun game, you can join in with a undevelopped character. You may be weaker, but you are risking nothing. The entire game is about risk vs reward. The more the risk, the better the reward and more satisfaction and fun in winning. The less risk, the less the reward. There are options in all things to bet 0 risk for a very low reward, or risk everything for a very high reward. This is very similar to gambling, which is highly addicting because of how rewarding it is to win- despite how awful it is to lose. By having permadeath or the chance of it, this gives more satisfaction and more rewarding experiences in winning. Yea it sucks to lose $100 gambling. But it's also fun to walk out of the casino with $1000. Don't want to wager alot? Then gamble $1 and come out with $10, or gamble $0 and just enjoy the scenery.
Want to PvP with other players? You can risk losing a powerful character, but you are rewarded with a higher chance of winning, and a better chance of being stronger than other characters and thus feeling "epic" convincing yourself it is YOUR SKILL that destroyed the enemy, not their weakness.
Want to relax and PvP without losing anything? Find two friends who want the same, and fight 3v1 and enjoy the satisfaction of taking away someone else's time, get their loot, gain tons of XP on disposable characters, and see how far you can go!
Want the long process of developping ONE character for years to get him to be [x] level and obtain [y] achievements? Focus on your unplayable LORD who collects Gold, Resources, Items, Faction, Player Housing, Titles, or Achievements which cannot be lost. Want only ONE type of character development which doesnt disappear that takes months to grind to an adequate level before being able to play the "real game" and have fun? Then go play another MMORPG. There's hundreds of those out there.
And there is the childish PvPer coming out. The point is I'm an adult, that doesn't get my engines going like you people. I don't like making other peoples day worse, I like making it better. Pass, so pass.
Convince one of the MMO's devs to offer a permadeath server and see how long it lasts.
I don't see how levels or skills have any impact on the concept.
I am level one, i swing a sword and do 5 points of damage.
I have skill level 1 of sword swinging and do 5 points of damage.
I am level 2, i swing a sword and do 6 points of damage.
I am skill level 2 of sword swinging and do 6 points of damage.
I die, I'm back to level 1, or skill level one, same difference.
If all content is available to all characters, and there is a lot of content- I don't see the problem.
How easy it would be to categorize content in the following:
EASY CONTENT
MEDIUM CONTENT
DIFFICULT CONTENT
IMPOSSIBLE CONTENT
Or better yet, a scale of 1-10 difficult. The better the character OR the more you bring with you, the better the chance you can accomplish it.
Other MMORPG's?
Let's see...
CONTENT for...
Lvls 1-5
Lvls 6-10
Lvls 11-15
Lvls 16-20
Lvls 21-25
Lvls 26-30
Lvls 31-35
Lvls 36-40
Lvls 41-45
Lvls 46-50
Lvls 51-55
Lvls 56-60
End Game Content
If you want to talk about repeating content...talk about the negatives of EVERY OTHER MMORPG.
In this MMORPG, if you want you can level 5 characters through easy and medium (1-5) content to be powerful enough to take on difficult content (which is as much as 50% the content in MMORPG's) and then take on content for lvls 6-10.
Or maybe just get a larger group of weak characters to take on content set at a difficulty of 7 or 8 to advance faster, encouraging grouping.
Or perhaps make 75% of the content for levels 1-60, meaning there is always TONS of new content, new mobs, new quests to do- a perfect balance since you play 75% of the time at lvls 1-60. When you get to skill levels 61-100, you have less content to choose from but you dont get there as often.
Problem solved.
I am not saying this is my solution. I am only saying that the "The content would be repetitive!" argument is very, very weak. If anything, it would be significantly fresher and feel like there is MORE content since most MMORPG's have way too much content per level bracket-- yet at the same time it feels like you repeat the EXACT SAME CONTENT over and over with every single alt.
How many times have I run through the Wailing Caverns or the Deadmines??? Wow, I couldn't even tell you.
really intriguing ideas.
Another variation on the 'lord' concept, and some explanation.
Many of us RPGers get some small emotional attachment to characters. I think this is the real barrier to permadeath.
What if instead of a 'lord' (or maybe this is close to your conception) you had a family, of not necessarily related folks that shared a house. Some things would be safe in the house, gold, weapons..
You could have one playable character and the rest could be off-line leveled based on the playable character's stats but at some %.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
We have permadeath in real life and i think everyne will agree it just sucks and is a real showstopper. Why would we want to play games that we escape into have that type of penalty?
I agree with these, and there are these things already in the game.
1) There is open or instanced PvP but only by CHOICE. The majority of the game is SAFE. Open PvP would be the most distant zones, like WoW or DAoC's Frontiers/Battlegrounds.
2) Characters are based on skills, NOT level. Specific skills. Spears is a Skill, 1h Swords is too, and so are Shields, 2h Swords, 2h Axes, etc. Want to switch a weapon? Try waiting for your next life if you can, bc it'll be THAT much more fun when you "fix your mistakes" the next time around. Maybe you'll even not care your guy died, bc you messed up so badly on picking character development. Quests and Monster difficulty as well as escape-abilities and difficulty being killed (plenty of warnings to get away- BUT you can risk for more reward. As this MMORPG idea is ALL about risk vs reward)
3) Definitely. Most content can be achieved by anyone of any skill level (given realistic variables such as group size, equipment, adequate skill levels in some areas or sometimes, preparation, consumable items such as potions or scrolls, etc. Ultima Online was sandbox, and you could go almost anywhere you wanted, given the circumstances. But the fewer the members of your group and the lower your skills- the riskier it was, but usually greater the reward.
4) Your "LORD" does progress and you play his subjects. The LORD does cap though at MOST 50/100 skill level, if not sooner. This allows for development, prevents repetitive newbie tasks, but encourages progress. And sure, being able to hire your subjects (playable characters) at higher and better skills in some way is a good idea, although should be costly. But this is a dangerous area as one key concept is to allow new players to always be (at least somewhat) competitive and thus prevent players who play too much, are long-time veterans, and korean gold-farmer buyers to be able to ALWAYS purchase 100/100 skilled characters (basically....TWINKS! I think twinks ruin PvP and even PvE. Allowing players too much control over starting with powerful characters will inevitably lead to twinks to those who have the resources- which were achieved by having high-end characters in the first place.)
A bad concept is bad just take a moment to imagine grouping with somebody and that person would cause your death on purpose or just because you won an item he wanted ect.
Your easy, medium, hard content makes no sense.
I will do the content that is most efficient at giving me skill progression.
If I die, I will do that content again, to regain my skills.
If the "easy" content is faster, I will do that. if the "hard" content is faster, I will do that.
If they are exactly equal, I will do the easy content, because it would mean less risk for equal reward.
Actually, the last thing it is- is childish.
There is an option to NOT execute the enemy, and instead just take his stuff (which isn't a big deal).
If you really wanted to play the part of mercy-giver, you could.
If you capture an enemy, you can execute him (which some ppl want to do, not because they're childish but because it's fun and it DOESNT take THAT much away from the enemy player).
The satisfaction is seeing an Enemy warrior take down 3 of your friends with ease, and gathering your 2 friends and killing him, exacting revenge by putting him to death. That is satisfying. Killing twinks is satisfying. Taking down a tougher opponent through player skill or teamwork is satisfying.
But if you want, when you capture him you can choose not to execute him. You can show mercy and let him go. Better yet, you can *RANSOM* the character and he can play him again once he pays your group (x) Gold. Or he can delete him (permadeath, saying NO to the ransom)
Or perhaps IMPRISON the character, forcing the enemy to have the FUN of a "Prison Rescue" in your own guild dungeon which was part of player-housing, where you place traps and fun mini-game pieces when he tries to do a NoN-PvP Prison Rescue for his guy. If your dungeon is good enough, you get to kill/loot TWO of the guy's characters! If he is better than your dungeon and completes the PvE "Prison Rescue" quest vs your dungeon, you are out some trap money and he gets BOTH his characters back.
Not everyone wants to gank and execute other players just to be an asshat. Some want to do it out of revenge "I remember that guy, he killed me 5 times!" or "He just killed my friend!!! RAWR!!!!! You're mine orc breathe!!!"
So glad this idea will never make it into any MMO.
Even if it did, I'd never play it.
Character progression and achievement are at the very core of MMO's They are what make these games fun.
I've been cool with xp loss, stat or skill loss, but perma death? you can keep that game.
The entire point is risk vs reward.
If easy content has an average success rate of 90% and a death rate of 10%, and rewards 10% XP,
medium content has an average success rate of 75% and a death rate of 25%, and rewards 25% XP, you are risking more but for greater rewards.
if hard content has an average success rate of 10% and a reward of 90% XP, you are risking alot but for ALOT more.
They all give XP. They all have a chance of dying. Which one you decide to do isn't which is "fastest" because the fastest is the hardest, and thus the greatest chance of losing everything. The slowest form of progression is the easiest.
The easy content would never be faster in gaining gold and xp...because it's easy and barely a risk...i'm sorry but I figured that would be common sense.
The question is always "How much do I want to risk today? How much do I want to gain?"
If you're skilled enough to grind the most difficult of content, then by all means do so. Just know you'll have the greatest chance of losing EVERYTHING. Want to relax, take it easy, and never die? Sure. Just know it'll take longer because you aren't risking anything.
It makes perfect sense. Also, if there are 100 ways to advance in easy content, you don't pick "the easiest one" when they're all easy. You pick 1 out of the 100 ways to advance because it's fun, or you haven't tried that quest before. When left with tons of choices and many different zones to go to, it's about more than just the easiest, the fastest, or the riskiest. It's about "Goblins or Undead? Warrior loot or Mage loot? Skinnables or Mining nodes?"