the last "harsh death penalty" mmorpg i played FFXI .............and really NO THX
losing XP on death is retarded.
Losing items is more retarded
Death doenst have to be meaningless ,but u dont need to infuriate players....
the worse is, the more will quit out of frustration....
Games exist to have fun ......
Checkpoints exist to help that
save games exist
i remember getting to the last levels on my old games only to get killed and GAME OVER , restart from lvl 1 again ? (the 1 i remember the most , sonic 1 sigh how frustrating.....)
The question is not whether or not there are other forms of raising the challenge difficulty of an objective. The question is whether or not the death penalty can affect that challenge difficulty, and I've shown that there are relevant objectives in which it can.
I tend to pay attention to the game not because I'm afraid of dying ingame, but because I want to win. To me, the game difficulty does not change with added risk.
The bridge analogy from before was rather good:
Walking over a bridge to cross a river is easy. Walking over a bridge to cross a lava stream is still easy.
At the same time:
Working at high altitudes is hard if you are afraid of hights - easy for someone who is not.
Some players just are not intimidated by death penalty and therefore want added challenge through gameplay. Harsh death penalty is just an annoyance. Increasing game difficulty through gameplay makes the game more challenging for everyone.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Oh there's no question about sales numbers, that's for sure. What most people prefer, however, is not meaningful. Unless you are here to tell me that you buy Madonna records because it is what most people prefer.
Or read a certain type of book because it is "best selling".
You have a strange view of the world, friend, and I am very happy to NOT share it.
Of course I don't buy things because they're popular. Don't be ridiculous.
My time's valuable, I play for fun, and I'm not a masochist, so games which waste my time with excessive (often boring) penalties are out. These logical reasons are why most people choose to play games without excessive penalties (whether they consciously realize it or not; most players don't think particularly deep on this stuff.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Oh there's no question about sales numbers, that's for sure. What most people prefer, however, is not meaningful. Unless you are here to tell me that you buy Madonna records because it is what most people prefer.
Or read a certain type of book because it is "best selling".
You have a strange view of the world, friend, and I am very happy to NOT share it.
Of course I don't buy things because they're popular. Don't be ridiculous.
My time's valuable, I play for fun, and I'm not a masochist, so games which waste my time with excessive (often boring) penalties are out. These logical reasons are why most people choose to play games without excessive penalties (whether they consciously realize it or not; most players don't think particularly deep on this stuff.)
Right. And there are also logical reasons why Justin Beiber's records outsell, say, the Dropkick Murphys and so that is exactly why his posters adorn your room. Your time is valuable, you see, so why bother listening to a bunch of things that might be boring since everyone can clearly see that Bieber is, quite logically, not boring. The numbers tell all.
How about the fact that there aren't a lot of choices out there for games as far as a person like me goes? Yeah, we've got more or less a "captive audience" out there suffering the result of people who don't care about good games, just that path to WoW riches.
Right now I can see exactly why the term "opiate of the masses" exists. Nothing good exists outside the mainstream. Popular opinion is how we judge everything.
A big problem I see with harsh death penalty is that it can cause a downward spiral that a player might not be able to recover from. Some games embraces this and some don't.
Funny thing is that even in games that 'embraces' this concept (e.g EVE-Online) most players (in EVE 80% of players are NOT in 0.0) still find a way to be 'safe/risk free' and stay there.
I think that any of the games that offer high risk/reward gameplay, it's part of the core gameplay but only for a small portion of the audience - successful MMOs with offering such gameplay historically have had a strong 'safe' side as well.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
LOL, you really shot yourself in the foot for not realizing that just because apples and oranges are both fruits, it does not automatically imply that they are the same fruits. Sure in both cases you lose a life, but it one case you lose 1/3 of your total lifes, while in the other one case you lose 1/99 of your total lifes: a clear difference in death penalty.
If you want us to take you seriously, you cannot keep doing such mistakes.
--------------------------------------------
Dude, WTF are you talking about? Are you hungry or something?
My point was to humor the post for the sake of showing how it doesn't fit, then to give the only circumstances in which their comparison was valid.
If you can't get the point I was making, then I can't help you. Axehilt's response pretty much nailed it, anyway. The comparison is invalid as it stands, and when put in an MMO context it blows the point the post was trying to make:
Originally posted by Axehilt
Contra's death system doesn't have a direct correlation to MMORPGs, which focus aren't singular failure points (you live or you die.)
The closest MMORPG mechanic is your health bar. Beating a boss is very hard with a 300 life points, but very easy with 9900 life points. But you only really incur a true penalty when you fail all the way (lose all your lives.)
There is NO penalty for losing a life in Contra until you're out of lives. Only when you hit 0 lives are you penalized in that you have to start the game all over again. So in order to compare contra to an MMO, you have to compare having 0 lives in Contra to dying in an MMO. And in both cases, you end up having to start over, in an MMO, you usually get ported with some kind of weakness, and the mob resets.
A big problem I see with harsh death penalty is that it can cause a downward spiral that a player might not be able to recover from. Some games embraces this and some don't.
Funny thing is that even in games that 'embraces' this concept (e.g EVE-Online) most players (in EVE 80% of players are NOT in 0.0) still find a way to be 'safe/risk free' and stay there.
I think that any of the games that offer high risk/reward gameplay, it's part of the core gameplay but only for a small portion of the audience - successful MMOs with offering such gameplay historically have had a strong 'safe' side as well.
I like the way Eve does it. You can buy insurance and update your clone. If you enjoy risk, you can do neither. And of course there's the security factor. A very good balance, IMO.
No challenge for you, you can't speak for everyone and that's fine, it's what makes the world go round heh. There are people who do see it as a challenge.
If people have flawed personal definitions of what challenge is, all I can do is present a more logical definition of challenge. I can't force them to accept superior logic, I can only present it to them.
Again, if there's no skill component, there's no challenge. And while there's a skill component to the concept of difficulty (how much skill is required to avoid failure) there isn't in the concept of penalty (what happens if you fail.)
Fact remains, the majority of death penalties do not challenge players, they merely delay/inconvience them. And the few death penalties which do involve some form of a skill check tend to be less compelling gameplay than a game's normal gameplay.
Beating Contra with 3 lives = Very hard.
Beating Contra with 99 lives = Very easy.
The only difference here is the death penalty. With 3 lives the death penalty is you get three free shots then it's over, with 99, you get 99 free shots then its over.
Death penalty is definitely not the only thing that contributes to difficulty, but it DOES contribute.
Contra's death system doesn't have a direct correlation to MMORPGs, which focus aren't singular failure points (you live or you die.)
The closest MMORPG mechanic is your health bar. Beating a boss is very hard with a 300 life points, but very easy with 9900 life points. But you only really incur a true penalty when you fail all the way (lose all your lives.)
Okay then in that case...
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
When we talk about "difficulty" you have to define some goal that you are trying to reach. If there is no goal you are trying to achieve, "difficulty" is a meainingless concept.
Generally, in MMORPGs the goal is to level up or get loot. Having a harsher death penalty pretty much inarguably makes this goal more difficult to achieve.
Now I'm not arguing that harsh death penalties are "the answer" to making games more challenging, as they can definitely be frustrating. But at the same time, you really have to recognize that death penalties make games more difficult.
Indeed the question was not whether you like a death penalty, the question was it a challenge a player would have to deal with. Talking about WoW, I would like to see EQ's original difficulty and death penalty in the game for a day and see people head for the hills, backwards, if you know what i mean
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
It'snot harder. It's just more time-consuming.
If you die once in 20 quests with zero penalty, you're going to die once in 20 quests with a harsh penalty. The difficulty is exactly the same. The amount of skill required is exactly the same.
It's walking a bridge, and walking a bridge over lava. The difficulty is easy in both cases.
It's only when we replace the bridge with a tightrope and force you to traverse it on a unicycle that it becomes difficult. The task itself now requires more skill.
Whether the tightrope is above lava or a safety net, you're going to have a very hard time crossing.
(Additionally if you're smart you're probably not even going to attempt the tightrope if it's over lava; even though attempting it might be fun; even though with enough practice you might experience an elated victory at mastering the task.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
It'snot harder. It's just more time-consuming.
If you die once in 20 quests with zero penalty, you're going to die once in 20 quests with a harsh penalty. The difficulty is exactly the same. The amount of skill required is exactly the same.
It's walking a bridge, and walking a bridge over lava. The difficulty is easy in both cases.
It's only when we replace the bridge with a tightrope and force you to traverse it on a unicycle that it becomes difficult. The task itself now requires more skill.
Whether the tightrope is above lava or a safety net, you're going to have a very hard time crossing.
(Additionally if you're smart you're probably not even going to attempt the tightrope if it's over lava; even though attempting it might be fun; even though with enough practice you might experience an elated victory at mastering the task.)
The problem with your bridge analogy is that your theorycraft assumes you'll never fall in, that is not reality. Reality is that you will and are going to fall in. Once you have fallen in you are forced to deal with the challenge of a harsh death penalty and how hard that is depends on the difficulty of that death penalty. Being an invulnerable ghost ala WoW and running back to where you were takes very little skill but has to take some quantitative value. Being naked, in the dark, vulnerable to anything ala EQ and running back to where you were takes a level of skill that would have be quantitatively higher.
I would say, in a game that you can actually *complete*, the death penalty is indeed an element of difficulty.
As the goal of singleplayers is to finish the game, everything that stands between you and completion is part of the game's difficulty imo.
But in MMO's, there is no clearly defined goal to the game, so death becomes more of a nuisance and frustration, often with no other end than to make the game last longer and/ or create a bigger divide between otherwise equally skilled players.
So I would definitely not say that an MMO benefits from such a thing.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Harsh death penalty just results in frustration more than anything. Harder gameplay should make the challenge. I remember in EQ2 during the TSO expansion there was a particularly difficult group encounter Varsoon which had great rewards even by raider standards. Not many players, even raiders, could complete the zone, so the drops were quite valued and sold very well.
There needs to be risk / difficulty versus reward to keep even the hard core players interested, but it shouldnt deter inexperienced or new players from trying encounters / zones due to harsh death penalties.
But frustration and nuisance are totally subjective terminology. Because someone views it as annoying doesn't invalidate the concept as challenging. One man's frustation is another man's joy. That's why they hopefully still make different games and not clones of WoW for the rest of time.
But frustration and nuisance are totally subjective terminology. Because someone views it as annoying doesn't invalidate the concept as challenging. One man's frustation is another man's joy. That's why they hopefully still make different games and not clones of WoW for the rest of time.
I would like to see games that have harsher penalties (whether I would like to play them is another thing), I do however, believe there are quite a few of these out there.
WoW doesn't have anything to with the industry's dislike of harsh death penalty's, it's just a matter of the general public not liking them, with reason.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
But frustration and nuisance are totally subjective terminology. Because someone views it as annoying doesn't invalidate the concept as challenging. One man's frustation is another man's joy. That's why they hopefully still make different games and not clones of WoW for the rest of time.
I would like to see games that have harsher penalties (whether I would like to play them is another thing), I do however, believe there are quite a few of these out there.
WoW doesn't have anything to with the industry's dislike of harsh death penalty's, it's just a matter of the general public not liking them, with reason.
I agree with you, the general public doesn't like them. And any developer with half a brain seeing the profit of WoW is unfortunately going to say I am not going to cut my potential subscriber base by 75%. But that wasn't the question, the question was is the concept of a harsh death penalty challenging
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
It'snot harder. It's just more time-consuming.
If you die once in 20 quests with zero penalty, you're going to die once in 20 quests with a harsh penalty. The difficulty is exactly the same. The amount of skill required is exactly the same.
It's walking a bridge, and walking a bridge over lava. The difficulty is easy in both cases.
It's only when we replace the bridge with a tightrope and force you to traverse it on a unicycle that it becomes difficult. The task itself now requires more skill.
Whether the tightrope is above lava or a safety net, you're going to have a very hard time crossing.
(Additionally if you're smart you're probably not even going to attempt the tightrope if it's over lava; even though attempting it might be fun; even though with enough practice you might experience an elated victory at mastering the task.)
Okay let's try again...
I present you with two tasks.
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
It'snot harder. It's just more time-consuming.
If you die once in 20 quests with zero penalty, you're going to die once in 20 quests with a harsh penalty. The difficulty is exactly the same. The amount of skill required is exactly the same.
It's walking a bridge, and walking a bridge over lava. The difficulty is easy in both cases.
It's only when we replace the bridge with a tightrope and force you to traverse it on a unicycle that it becomes difficult. The task itself now requires more skill.
Whether the tightrope is above lava or a safety net, you're going to have a very hard time crossing.
(Additionally if you're smart you're probably not even going to attempt the tightrope if it's over lava; even though attempting it might be fun; even though with enough practice you might experience an elated victory at mastering the task.)
Okay let's try again...
I present you with two tasks.
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
You attack a mob that is overpowered compared to your character and you die. The death is the penalty, the mobs power is the difficulty.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
A big problem I see with harsh death penalty is that it can cause a downward spiral that a player might not be able to recover from. Some games embraces this and some don't.
Funny thing is that even in games that 'embraces' this concept (e.g EVE-Online) most players (in EVE 80% of players are NOT in 0.0) still find a way to be 'safe/risk free' and stay there.
I think that any of the games that offer high risk/reward gameplay, it's part of the core gameplay but only for a small portion of the audience - successful MMOs with offering such gameplay historically have had a strong 'safe' side as well.
I like the way Eve does it. You can buy insurance and update your clone. If you enjoy risk, you can do neither. And of course there's the security factor. A very good balance, IMO.
Same. One of the accidental greatnesses of the Tram/Fel split for UO (forgive my blasphemy) is that it offered that choice so that the FFA crowd could hop to Tram when they got sick of constantly looking over their shoulder, and the Tram crowd could snuggle into a good suit if their best gear to come over and do what i do in EVE when I go to nullsec - experience PVP for a brief instant before losing everything they came with.
The important thing is that the choice this there, on the same server, with the same character and all one's resources. No need to roll somewhere else, join a different guild and give one's self yet a THIRD daily job just to try out how the other half plays for a few hours a week.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I would say, in a game that you can actually *complete*, the death penalty is indeed an element of difficulty.
As the goal of singleplayers is to finish the game, everything that stands between you and completion is part of the game's difficulty imo.
But in MMO's, there is no clearly defined goal to the game, so death becomes more of a nuisance and frustration, often with no other end than to make the game last longer and/ or create a bigger divide between otherwise equally skilled players.
So I would definitely not say that an MMO benefits from such a thing.
I think your argument kind of contradicts itself...
First you say that death penalties add a level of difficulty if the game can be "completed."
Then you say that MMO's have no clearly defined goal, thus they cannot be completed, therefore the death penalty does not add a level difficulty to MMO's.
But you also say that death penalties in MMO's are frustrating because they just make the game "last longer."
Well...if a death penalty can make the game "last longer" then doesn't that imply that it can be completed? If the game could not be completed, then it has no "length" so a death penalty could not make the game last longer.
Just because the MMORPG doesn't roll the credits after you reach max level or beat some huge raid boss does not mean there are not goals in the MMORPG that can be completed and thus have their difficulty affected by the death penalty.
For example, reaching max level is a common goal, this is definitely impacted by a death penalty that punishes exp.
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
You attack a mob that is overpowered compared to your character and you die. The death is the penalty, the mobs power is the difficulty.
This viewpoint is exactly what I was talking about in my post.
Beating a single MOB is NOT by any stretch of the imagination the "goal" of most players in an MMORPG. Most players in theme park MMORPGs have the goals of gaining exp and gaining loot. Killing a mob may be a frequently repeated task in acheieving those goals, but it is NOT the goal of players in an MMORPG. If it was, they would not care if the MOB dropped loot or provided exp.
And when you look at the broader goals of getting exp/loot...death penalties DO affect the difficulty of the game because they force you to play more consistently skillful.
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
Im just quoting this because it's one of the best posts on this topic that i've ever seen
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
You attack a mob that is overpowered compared to your character and you die. The death is the penalty, the mobs power is the difficulty.
This viewpoint is exactly what I was talking about in my post.
Beating a single MOB is NOT by any stretch of the imagination the "goal" of most players in an MMORPG. Most players in theme park MMORPGs have the goals of gaining exp and gaining loot. Killing a mob may be a frequently repeated task in acheieving those goals, but it is NOT the goal of players in an MMORPG. If it was, they would not care if the MOB dropped loot or provided exp.
And when you look at the broader goals of getting exp/loot...death penalties DO affect the difficulty of the game because they force you to play more consistently skillful.
You are just wrong. Death penalty is just that. You are stretching so you should know that.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
This viewpoint is exactly what I was talking about in my post.
Beating a single MOB is NOT by any stretch of the imagination the "goal" of most players in an MMORPG. Most players in theme park MMORPGs have the goals of gaining exp and gaining loot. Killing a mob may be a frequently repeated task in acheieving those goals, but it is NOT the goal of players in an MMORPG. If it was, they would not care if the MOB dropped loot or provided exp.
And when you look at the broader goals of getting exp/loot...death penalties DO affect the difficulty of the game because they force you to play more consistently skillful.
You are just wrong. Death penalty is just that. You are stretching so you should know that.
Do you have an argument beyond "you are wrong because I said so?"
Comments
the last "harsh death penalty" mmorpg i played FFXI .............and really NO THX
losing XP on death is retarded.
Losing items is more retarded
Death doenst have to be meaningless ,but u dont need to infuriate players....
the worse is, the more will quit out of frustration....
Games exist to have fun ......
Checkpoints exist to help that
save games exist
i remember getting to the last levels on my old games only to get killed and GAME OVER , restart from lvl 1 again ? (the 1 i remember the most , sonic 1
sigh how frustrating.....)
I tend to pay attention to the game not because I'm afraid of dying ingame, but because I want to win. To me, the game difficulty does not change with added risk.
The bridge analogy from before was rather good:
Walking over a bridge to cross a river is easy. Walking over a bridge to cross a lava stream is still easy.
At the same time:
Working at high altitudes is hard if you are afraid of hights - easy for someone who is not.
Some players just are not intimidated by death penalty and therefore want added challenge through gameplay. Harsh death penalty is just an annoyance. Increasing game difficulty through gameplay makes the game more challenging for everyone.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Of course I don't buy things because they're popular. Don't be ridiculous.
My time's valuable, I play for fun, and I'm not a masochist, so games which waste my time with excessive (often boring) penalties are out. These logical reasons are why most people choose to play games without excessive penalties (whether they consciously realize it or not; most players don't think particularly deep on this stuff.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Right. And there are also logical reasons why Justin Beiber's records outsell, say, the Dropkick Murphys and so that is exactly why his posters adorn your room. Your time is valuable, you see, so why bother listening to a bunch of things that might be boring since everyone can clearly see that Bieber is, quite logically, not boring. The numbers tell all.
How about the fact that there aren't a lot of choices out there for games as far as a person like me goes? Yeah, we've got more or less a "captive audience" out there suffering the result of people who don't care about good games, just that path to WoW riches.
Right now I can see exactly why the term "opiate of the masses" exists. Nothing good exists outside the mainstream. Popular opinion is how we judge everything.
I think that any of the games that offer high risk/reward gameplay, it's part of the core gameplay but only for a small portion of the audience - successful MMOs with offering such gameplay historically have had a strong 'safe' side as well.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I like the way Eve does it. You can buy insurance and update your clone. If you enjoy risk, you can do neither. And of course there's the security factor. A very good balance, IMO.
Okay then in that case...
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you just respawn exactly where you died with full health everytime = Ridiculously easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW with the current death penalty = Fairly easy
Getting to level 60 on WoW if you lost 3 bubbles of exp every time you died = Harder
When we talk about "difficulty" you have to define some goal that you are trying to reach. If there is no goal you are trying to achieve, "difficulty" is a meainingless concept.
Generally, in MMORPGs the goal is to level up or get loot. Having a harsher death penalty pretty much inarguably makes this goal more difficult to achieve.
Now I'm not arguing that harsh death penalties are "the answer" to making games more challenging, as they can definitely be frustrating. But at the same time, you really have to recognize that death penalties make games more difficult.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Indeed the question was not whether you like a death penalty, the question was it a challenge a player would have to deal with. Talking about WoW, I would like to see EQ's original difficulty and death penalty in the game for a day and see people head for the hills, backwards, if you know what i mean
It's not harder. It's just more time-consuming.
If you die once in 20 quests with zero penalty, you're going to die once in 20 quests with a harsh penalty. The difficulty is exactly the same. The amount of skill required is exactly the same.
It's walking a bridge, and walking a bridge over lava. The difficulty is easy in both cases.
It's only when we replace the bridge with a tightrope and force you to traverse it on a unicycle that it becomes difficult. The task itself now requires more skill.
Whether the tightrope is above lava or a safety net, you're going to have a very hard time crossing.
(Additionally if you're smart you're probably not even going to attempt the tightrope if it's over lava; even though attempting it might be fun; even though with enough practice you might experience an elated victory at mastering the task.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The problem with your bridge analogy is that your theorycraft assumes you'll never fall in, that is not reality. Reality is that you will and are going to fall in. Once you have fallen in you are forced to deal with the challenge of a harsh death penalty and how hard that is depends on the difficulty of that death penalty. Being an invulnerable ghost ala WoW and running back to where you were takes very little skill but has to take some quantitative value. Being naked, in the dark, vulnerable to anything ala EQ and running back to where you were takes a level of skill that would have be quantitatively higher.
I would say, in a game that you can actually *complete*, the death penalty is indeed an element of difficulty.
As the goal of singleplayers is to finish the game, everything that stands between you and completion is part of the game's difficulty imo.
But in MMO's, there is no clearly defined goal to the game, so death becomes more of a nuisance and frustration, often with no other end than to make the game last longer and/ or create a bigger divide between otherwise equally skilled players.
So I would definitely not say that an MMO benefits from such a thing.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Harsh death penalty just results in frustration more than anything. Harder gameplay should make the challenge. I remember in EQ2 during the TSO expansion there was a particularly difficult group encounter Varsoon which had great rewards even by raider standards. Not many players, even raiders, could complete the zone, so the drops were quite valued and sold very well.
There needs to be risk / difficulty versus reward to keep even the hard core players interested, but it shouldnt deter inexperienced or new players from trying encounters / zones due to harsh death penalties.
But frustration and nuisance are totally subjective terminology. Because someone views it as annoying doesn't invalidate the concept as challenging. One man's frustation is another man's joy. That's why they hopefully still make different games and not clones of WoW for the rest of time.
I would like to see games that have harsher penalties (whether I would like to play them is another thing), I do however, believe there are quite a few of these out there.
WoW doesn't have anything to with the industry's dislike of harsh death penalty's, it's just a matter of the general public not liking them, with reason.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I agree with you, the general public doesn't like them. And any developer with half a brain seeing the profit of WoW is unfortunately going to say I am not going to cut my potential subscriber base by 75%. But that wasn't the question, the question was is the concept of a harsh death penalty challenging
Okay let's try again...
I present you with two tasks.
1. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations without dropping any balls. If you drop a ball, you have to start over at 0 rotations.
2. Juggle 3 balls for 30 rotations. If you drop a ball, you can pick it up and just resume juggling without resetting your current count of rotations.
Which one is more difficult?
I think every single person reading this would say it's far more difficult to have to start over from 0 rotations if you ever drop a ball. It FORCES you to perform consistently skillfully for a longer period of time. If you can just pick up a ball without restarting your count of rotations, then you can "win' by just doing one rotation, drop the ball, one rotation, drop the ball, repeat until you have 30.
This is very much the way death penalties work.
Look at the standard "repair cost" death penalty. This penalty essentially makes you pay a certain amount of gold everytime you die...it is a death expense. Now imagine that your goal is to get 200gp to buy a mount or something, and you get gold through killing monsters which incurs a risk of death.
If you play haphazardly and die often, you pay wind up paying MORE in death expense than you are gaining from killing monsters, as such you will never accomplish your goal. Alternatively, if you play adequately and die a few times, you will eventually reach your goal, but the death expense will set you back a bit. Finally, if you play very skillfully and die infrequently or not at all, you will achieve your goal much more quickly, this is the most efficient and best rewarded playstyle.
Harsh death penalties reward skillful play by punishing foolish play. If you play poorly/recklessly, you will have much more trouble accomplishing your goals. If you play skillfully/carefully, you will be able to accomplish your goals much easier.
So once again, do harsher death penalties make MMORPGs more challenging? Yes. Provided that you look at the goal of the MMORPG as something that the game punishes. Like gaining wealth (repair costs) or gaining levels (exp cost).
I think the problem with a lot of arguments against the death penalty being challenging is that they take a myopic view of "goals." People say things like, "it's just as difficult to kill an orc with a harsh death penalty as it is without one." Duh. But the goal of the game is NOT to kill orcs, it's generally to gain exp/wealth...and death penalties do make these goals more difficult.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You attack a mob that is overpowered compared to your character and you die. The death is the penalty, the mobs power is the difficulty.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Same. One of the accidental greatnesses of the Tram/Fel split for UO (forgive my blasphemy) is that it offered that choice so that the FFA crowd could hop to Tram when they got sick of constantly looking over their shoulder, and the Tram crowd could snuggle into a good suit if their best gear to come over and do what i do in EVE when I go to nullsec - experience PVP for a brief instant before losing everything they came with.
The important thing is that the choice this there, on the same server, with the same character and all one's resources. No need to roll somewhere else, join a different guild and give one's self yet a THIRD daily job just to try out how the other half plays for a few hours a week.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I think your argument kind of contradicts itself...
First you say that death penalties add a level of difficulty if the game can be "completed."
Then you say that MMO's have no clearly defined goal, thus they cannot be completed, therefore the death penalty does not add a level difficulty to MMO's.
But you also say that death penalties in MMO's are frustrating because they just make the game "last longer."
Well...if a death penalty can make the game "last longer" then doesn't that imply that it can be completed? If the game could not be completed, then it has no "length" so a death penalty could not make the game last longer.
Just because the MMORPG doesn't roll the credits after you reach max level or beat some huge raid boss does not mean there are not goals in the MMORPG that can be completed and thus have their difficulty affected by the death penalty.
For example, reaching max level is a common goal, this is definitely impacted by a death penalty that punishes exp.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This viewpoint is exactly what I was talking about in my post.
Beating a single MOB is NOT by any stretch of the imagination the "goal" of most players in an MMORPG. Most players in theme park MMORPGs have the goals of gaining exp and gaining loot. Killing a mob may be a frequently repeated task in acheieving those goals, but it is NOT the goal of players in an MMORPG. If it was, they would not care if the MOB dropped loot or provided exp.
And when you look at the broader goals of getting exp/loot...death penalties DO affect the difficulty of the game because they force you to play more consistently skillful.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Im just quoting this because it's one of the best posts on this topic that i've ever seen
Death penalty does not affect game difficulty in any way. What a remarkable discovery!
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
You are just wrong. Death penalty is just that. You are stretching so you should know that.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Do you have an argument beyond "you are wrong because I said so?"
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?