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.
Lets say your goal is to pick up 5 apples. Everytime you fail to pick an apple i.e drop one, you have to pick up an additional apple. Essentially what you are saying that picking up 10 apples is "harder" than picking up just 5 apples. The penalty does not apply challenge to this task. It does not make it harder - it only makes it more time-consuming like Axehilt said.
The point of difficulty is not the goal or the labor you put into it, it is whether you succeed or not and improving your skill in order to succeed. Getting to the max level or getting enough money is an eventuality. You either do it fast or slow, but you'll reach your goal in the end.
Game is difficult when there is a chance that you will not succeed - that if you do not play properly, you will not beat that boss, and will not advance in the game. In no way does any form of experience penalty or money loss make that boss or encounter any harder to beat. Only way to pass that encounter is to plan, try again and play better.
Most people do not need further motivation to play well other than to advance in the game. Like I wrote earlier, I try my best not because I fear the death penalty, but because I want to win.
Harsh death penalty offers a cheap thrill for those who have a tendency to gambling, but it doesn't add challenge to those who find it only irritating. Whole games are based on this thrill like Blackjack. Infact the game is rather boring if there are no stakes. However the stakes do not make counting cards any more difficult than it is without them. Adding decks, on the other hand, do make it more difficult.
Can I not make it any more obvious?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
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.
Lets say your goal is to pick up 5 apples. Everytime you fail to pick an apple i.e drop one, you have to pick up an additional apple. Essentially what you are saying that picking up 10 apples is "harder" than picking up just 5 apples. The penalty does not apply challenge to this task. It does not make it harder - it only makes it more time-consuming like Axehilt said.
The point of difficulty is not the goal or the labor you put into it, it is whether you succeed or not and improving your skill in order to succeed. Getting to the max level or getting enough money is an eventuality. You either do it fast or slow, but you'll reach your goal in the end.
Game is difficult when there is a chance that you will not succeed - that if you do not play properly, you will not beat that boss, and will not advance in the game. In no way does any form of experience penalty or money loss make that boss or encounter any harder to beat. Only way to pass that encounter is to plan, try again and play better.
Most people do not need further motivation to play well other than to advance in the game. Like I wrote earlier, I try my best not because I fear the death penalty, but because I want to win.
Harsh death penalty offers a cheap thrill for those who have a tendency to gambling, but it doesn't add challenge to those who find it only irritating. Whole games are based on this thrill like Blackjack. Infact the game is rather boring if there are no stakes. However the stakes do not make counting cards any more difficult than it is without them. Adding decks, on the other hand, do make it more difficult.
Can I not make it any more obvious?
The implicit assumption you make in this argument is that picking up apples is a dull activity that requires no real skill to perform. Therefore, having to pick up more apples if you drop some due to incompetence, does not make the task for difficult, just more tedious.
Well let's get rid of that assumption.
Assume now that the apples are absolutely coated with grease, and you have to cradle the apples you already picked up in your arm. If you drop any, you have to start over.
This task just got more difficult because now you have to pick up and HOLD 5 greasy apples simultaneously.
If you only had to pick up an apple 5 times where dropping it didn't matter, this would be much easier.
Also...I've never argued that harsh death penalties are "good." People say they can be frustrating and I completely agree. All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
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.
Lets say your goal is to pick up 5 apples. Everytime you fail to pick an apple i.e drop one, you have to pick up an additional apple. Essentially what you are saying that picking up 10 apples is "harder" than picking up just 5 apples. The penalty does not apply challenge to this task. It does not make it harder - it only makes it more time-consuming like Axehilt said.
The point of difficulty is not the goal or the labor you put into it, it is whether you succeed or not and improving your skill in order to succeed. Getting to the max level or getting enough money is an eventuality. You either do it fast or slow, but you'll reach your goal in the end.
Game is difficult when there is a chance that you will not succeed - that if you do not play properly, you will not beat that boss, and will not advance in the game. In no way does any form of experience penalty or money loss make that boss or encounter any harder to beat. Only way to pass that encounter is to plan, try again and play better.
Most people do not need further motivation to play well other than to advance in the game. Like I wrote earlier, I try my best not because I fear the death penalty, but because I want to win.
Harsh death penalty offers a cheap thrill for those who have a tendency to gambling, but it doesn't add challenge to those who find it only irritating. Whole games are based on this thrill like Blackjack. Infact the game is rather boring if there are no stakes. However the stakes do not make counting cards any more difficult than it is without them. Adding decks, on the other hand, do make it more difficult.
Can I not make it any more obvious?
The implicit assumption you make in this argument is that picking up apples is a dull activity that requires no real skill to perform. Therefore, having to pick up more apples if you drop some due to incompetence, does not make the task for difficult, just more tedious.
Well let's get rid of that assumption.
Assume now that the apples are absolutely coated with grease, and you have to cradle the apples you already picked up in your arm. If you drop any, you have to start over.
This task just got more difficult because now you have to pick up and HOLD 5 greasy apples simultaneously.
If you only had to pick up an apple 5 times where dropping it didn't matter, this would be much easier.
Also...I've never argued that harsh death penalties are "good." People say they can be frustrating and I completely agree. All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Replace the "skillfully" with "cowardly" and I can agree, but otherwise no. I do not agree. Harsh death penalty does not add challenge. And you cannot transfer that greasy apples analogy to a game. My analogy is simple because it shows that an easy task does not become more challenging with penalty. That was the point of the analogy.
Even in the greasy apple scenario, you would have to learn to cradle 5 apples simultaneously. That is the requirement to succeed. You cannot complete the tast without mastering it. The penalty does not change that. Dropping apples only make failing that much frustrating - but only that.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
For players interested in getting through content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of delaying their progress. That would appear to present a greater challenge. It's like climbing a mountain. Each time you trip, you fall 100 meters down the mountain. Then you have to climb back up again. In that respect, there is a greater challenge to reach the top of the mountain.
For players interested in experiencing content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of distracting or handicapping the player. That would appear to present a greater challenge. In the example of climbing a mountain, you are trying to focus on your climbing technique. But if you're scared of falling, you're not devoting your full attention to your technique. Therefore, your technique is handicapped by a distraction, and mountain climbing is more difficult. The same could be said of wearing a blindfold.
For players like me, the harsh penalty for failure is uninteresting. I want content that is inherently challenging because it taxes my skills, not because it distracts me from using those skills. I'm certainly not in the camp of "getting through content". I want to experience the content. Which is why I don't bother with MMOs. My skills are not taxed, so there's not much for me to experience.
The implicit assumption you make in this argument is that picking up apples is a dull activity that requires no real skill to perform. Therefore, having to pick up more apples if you drop some due to incompetence, does not make the task for difficult, just more tedious.
Well let's get rid of that assumption.
Assume now that the apples are absolutely coated with grease, and you have to cradle the apples you already picked up in your arm. If you drop any, you have to start over.
This task just got more difficult because now you have to pick up and HOLD 5 greasy apples simultaneously.
If you only had to pick up an apple 5 times where dropping it didn't matter, this would be much easier.
Also...I've never argued that harsh death penalties are "good." People say they can be frustrating and I completely agree. All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Yes. And that is called CREATING HARDER GAMEPLAY, not CREATING HARSHER DEATH PENALTY. it IS more difficult to pick up and hold 5 greasy apples as opposed to normal ones; you've made it more challenging but have NOT increased the Death Penalty.
Unless you're saying that every time you fail, the apples get "greasier".
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?
You've removed the concept of failure from #2, so clearly #1 is more difficult.
But we're not talking about MMORPGs with completely zero death penalty. We're talking about MMORPGs with exactly as much penalty as is absolutely necessary; and no more.
So the correct comparison is:
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count.
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count and Tony kicks you in the shin 10 times.
Because no game out there has zero consequences of failure, but the games in contention in this thread are the ones like #2, where excessive penalty is being added to an otherwise acceptable failure state.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Anyone trying to make the arguement of death penalty being a challenge just needs to cite the comparison of WoW's corpse run and EQ's corpse run. None of these other anologies are necessary, in fact they just give the other side more fuel
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is 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?
You've removed the concept of failure from #2, so clearly #1 is more difficult.
But we're not talking about MMORPGs with completely zero death penalty. We're talking about MMORPGs with exactly as much penalty as is absolutely necessary; and no more.
So the correct comparison is:
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count.
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count and Tony kicks you in the shin 10 times.
Because no game out there has zero consequences of failure, but the games in contention in this thread are the ones like #2, where excessive penalty is being added to an otherwise acceptable failure state.
Tony kicking you in the shin is unrelated to juggling...it doesn't have an impact.
Most death penalties ARE related to your progress through the game (exp/loot/time loss), so they do have an impact.
A "tony kicks you in the shin" death penalty in an MMORPG would be something like if the game charged your credit card $5.00 every time you died. It's completely unrelated to your progress in the game.
Also, good luck juggling for 30 rotations with a broken shin .
My point here is that just because there can be poorly designed death penalties that don't make a game more difficult, does not mean that all of them are this way.
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
LOL!!!
My friend, think about that for a moment, and answer me this one question:
Do you think that surgeons ENJOY the fact that their failures during a surgery can have such dire consequences?
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
LOL!!!
My friend, think about that for a moment, and answer me this one question:
Do you think that surgeons ENJOY the fact that their failures during a surgery can have such dire consequences?
That is inconsequential. The question is "does a death penalty make the game more difficult?" I was never arguing that death penalties are "good" and that they should be harsh. I, like you, think they can be frustrating.
BUT, I recognize that they DO make the game more difficult. And you do need some kind of death penalty in the game, though not a veyr harsh one.
As an aside though, I do think surgeons probably enjoy the high income levels that are commensurate with the risk of their job .
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
What do you suppose that training entails? Do you think it involves repeating the same process over and over again for 8 years? Or do you think it's practicing the process, then practicing what to do when things don't go as planned?
With anything you could call a career in life, a truly skilled person is determined less by how they perform their daily routine, and more about how they get things in order when that routine fails. And DP's don't help train someone in that regard, either.
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
Depends on the game itself. If a game is very easy, adding a tough death penalty will not make it more difficult or more challenging. You will still not die much if at all.
In addition, I personally find your commentary to be a fairly sweeping generalization. I may try to teach you how to play guitar, and you may work your arse off at it, and still be not quite as good as another student who "gets it" with much less effort than you are giving. In other words, there is such a thing as aptitude and natural ability. I myself will never be a good artistic painter no matter how hard I work at it.
So, for at least some players, playing at a high level of skill will be pretty effortless. For others it will be a struggle. That's just how things work.
....All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
LOL!!!
My friend, think about that for a moment, and answer me this one question:
Do you think that surgeons ENJOY the fact that their failures during a surgery can have such dire consequences?
That is inconsequential. The question is "does a death penalty make the game more difficult?"
And the answer is "no". The surgery itself is no more difficult, other than, as I and others have mentioned, the simple chance of freezing up under pressure.
Game is difficult when there is a chance that you will not succeed - that if you do not play properly, you will not beat that boss, and will not advance in the game. In no way does any form of experience penalty or money loss make that boss or encounter any harder to beat. Only way to pass that encounter is to plan, try again and play better.
Most people do not need further motivation to play well other than to advance in the game.
I recommend you spend some time in world of warcraft, and see exactly how much better you become from lvl 25 until you reach 85.
If there was a chance that you would not reach max level because of a xp penalty upon your death, i really think players would atleast TRY to improve. But ofc this wouldn't work unless there was an actual risk of death while playing .
That is inconsequential. The question is "does a death penalty make the game more difficult?" I was never arguing that death penalties are "good" and that they should be harsh. I, like you, think they can be frustrating.
BUT, I recognize that they DO make the game more difficult. And you do need some kind of death penalty in the game, though not a veyr harsh one.
As an aside though, I do think surgeons probably enjoy the high income levels that are commensurate with the risk of their job .
And let's go a little farther with this... What situation do you think would better train a surgeon?
1. Making the training more difficult by hiding the organ behind sensitive areas, creating scenarios where the patient starts hemmorhaging, etc.
or
2. Every time they fail a surgery, you break one of their fingers?
* # 2 is based on penalties where you have "rez sickness"
I recommend you spend some time in world of warcraft, and see exactly how much better you become from lvl 25 until you reach 85.
If there was a chance that you would not reach max level because of a xp penalty upon your death, i really think players would atleast TRY to improve. But ofc this wouldn't work unless there was an actual risk of death while playing .
I think if you kept the current penalty, but made the mobs about 2-3 levels harder, they'd try to improve, AND still enjoy the game. Maybe enjoy it a bit more.
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
What do you suppose that training entails? Do you think it involves repeating the same process over and over again for 8 years? Or do you think it's practicing the process, then practicing what to do when things don't go as planned?
With anything you could call a career in life, a truly skilled person is determined less by how they perform their daily routine, and more about how they get things in order when that routine fails. And DP's don't help train someone in that regard, either.
I think you're missing the point...
It doesn't matter what the training entails. The reason the training is there is because there is a harsh failure penalty. If there was no harsh failure penalty, there would not be a reason for such heavy training at all.
WITH a harsh failure penalty the training is much like you say, praciticing contingencies, learning all you can about the human body so you can recognize when something goes wrong etc...
WITHOUT a harsh failure penalty the training would probably consist of a book labeled "surgery for dummies."
There is no reason to waste time training for something that has no real penalty for failure. Because you can just do it over and over again (in real practice) until you finally succeed.
There is no reason to waste time training for something that has no real penalty for failure. Because you can just do it over and over again (in real practice) until you finally succeed.
That's assuming that the task at hand is NEVER (Edited) difficult.
Much as Scrog was saying, there is no reason to waste time training if you could get up, go to the bathroom, come back and find your character has auto attacked an orc to death. And the most insidious Death penalty will do little to change that.
Now, if you amp up the mobs, give them some nasty "tell-nukes", etc, a player will learn, "He's glowing red, I better interrupt him before he TPW's us!". And they'll learn that faster if they don't have to grind or corpse walk every time they fail...
On the other hand, if you amp up the DP, they'll just get fed up with corpse walking and quit.
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.
You are doing the same mistake over and over again: you do not define any "objective". Without any objective, you cannot really start talking about how challenging something is, unless there is some consensus about an ultimate objective that everyone agrees on.
Sure, if the objective is to simply kill all bosses in a dungeon, then a strong death penalty may not affect the difficulty of completing that objective. However, as I said in my earlier post, if the objective is to achieve a certain amount of exp per hour groupwise, then yes it can matter., which I showed in the mmorpg-example in an older post.
So let me reiterate: define the objective/goal/mission before you start talking about the difficulty/challenge.
There is no reason to waste time training for something that has no real penalty for failure. Because you can just do it over and over again (in real practice) until you finally succeed.
That's assuming that the task at hand is not difficult.
Much as Scrog was saying, there is no reason to waste time training if you could get up, go to the bathroom, come back and find your character has auto attacked an orc to death. And the most insidious Death penalty will do little to change that.
Now, if you amp up the mobs, give them some nasty "tell-nukes", etc, a player will learn, "He's glowing red, I better interrupt him before he TPW's us!". And they'll learn that faster if they don't have to grind or corpse walk every time they fail...
On the other hand, if you amp up the DP, they'll just get fed up with corpse walking and quit.
I totally agree with your statement...but, your statement HAS A DEATH PENALTY IN IT.
You say "And they'll learn that faster if they don't (want to) have to grind or corpose walk everytime they fail."
Well what do you think grind or corpse walking is? A DEATH PENALTY!
Would you not agree, that if we take your scenario, but we remove the death penalty entirely, that it would be easier? In other words, when you die, you instantly respawn where you just died with full health and mana and no losses at all. Wouldn't this be easier than having to walk back to your corpse when you die? Also, wouldn't this completely remove any incentive for players to train? They could just bang their head against a hard mob until it died.
This is an extreme example, it's basically the opposite of permadeath. But it illustrates a point. Death penalties DO contribute to the difficulty of the game.
This DOES NOT mean that you can just increase the death penalty arbitrarily and make the game more challenging through that mechanism alone. At some point, it will just become frustrating.
But on the same token, increasing encounter difficulty can do the exact same thing. Imagine a game with a WoW death penalty where the MOBs are so difficult that it takes about 20 tries to kill one. This would be ridiculously frustrating, no one would play it.
You have to strike a balance between the cost of failure (death penalty) and the risk of failure (encounter difficulty) to have a good, challenging game.
There is no reason to waste time training for something that has no real penalty for failure. Because you can just do it over and over again (in real practice) until you finally succeed.
That's assuming that the task at hand is not difficult.
Much as Scrog was saying, there is no reason to waste time training if you could get up, go to the bathroom, come back and find your character has auto attacked an orc to death. And the most insidious Death penalty will do little to change that.
Now, if you amp up the mobs, give them some nasty "tell-nukes", etc, a player will learn, "He's glowing red, I better interrupt him before he TPW's us!". And they'll learn that faster if they don't have to grind or corpse walk every time they fail...
On the other hand, if you amp up the DP, they'll just get fed up with corpse walking and quit.
I totally agree with your statement...but, your statement HAS A DEATH PENALTY IN IT.
You say "And they'll learn that faster if they don't (want to) have to grind or corpose walk everytime they fail."
Negative on your addition. They'll learn faster if they don't have to. Because they won't be wasting their time on the stupidity of corpse walking. And they can use that saved time to figure out how they were beat in the first place.
Well what do you think grind or corpse walking is? A DEATH PENALTY!
Yes. As Axe has mentioned multiple times regarding himself, I too support a death penalty. On this very thread I endorsed Eve's death penalty, which I wouldn't consider a slap on the wrist, would you?
What I don't support are harsh ones, meant to punish beyond what makes sense for a game. I endorse Eve's penalty because it fits the lawless, pirate feel of the game and you can choose to avoid most of it. And most people do.
Would you not agree, that if we take your scenario, but we remove the death penalty entirely, that it would be easier? In other words, when you die, you instantly respawn where you just died with full health and mana and no losses at all. Wouldn't this be easier than having to walk back to your corpse when you die? Also, wouldn't this completely remove any incentive for players to train? They could just bang their head against a hard mob until it died.
Again, no, it would NOT be easier. It would be LESS TEDIOUS. Grinding XP back is not difficult. Waiting for rez sickness to pass is not difficult. Corpse walking IS difficult but is an excrutiatingly LAME way to spend your time playing a game.
This is an extreme example, it's basically the opposite of permadeath. But it illustrates a point. Death penalties DO contribute to the difficulty of the game.
This DOES NOT mean that you can just increase the death penalty arbitrarily and make the game more challenging through that mechanism alone. At some point, it will just become frustrating.
But on the same token, increasing encounter difficulty can do the exact same thing. Imagine a game with a WoW death penalty where the MOBs are so difficult that it takes about 20 tries to kill one. This would be ridiculously frustrating, no one would play it.
Actually, such things exist, and exist in most MMO's. They're usually called "raids". When new raids are introduced, players can fail them many, many, MANY times. But I assure you, if you require corpse runs, or those failures lead to DP's dropping them a level? They'll stop trying. Not because it's "harder", but because it's not worth doing if you have a hefty challenge that you're trying to meet.
You have to strike a balance between the cost of failure (death penalty) and the risk of failure (encounter difficulty) to have a good, challenging game.
And most MMO's have already done that, IMO. Death is a PITA in every game I've played(except STO, which is too light, IMO). I still think "rez-sickness" is anti-productive, but being ported, item repair, etc... I think those things are just fine.
Also, wouldn't this completely remove any incentive for players to train? They could just bang their head against a hard mob until it died.
This is not RL. In a game you can design the scenario that you can't just 'fail your way to success'. If the encounter is properly designed you can't 'gang your head against a hard mob until it died'. The standard non-harsh death penalty is that if you fail an encounter you have to restart it from the beginning and all the starting conditions reset. This prevents 'fail to succeed' scenarios since the player has to learn in order to beat the encounter and if they just repeat the same mistake over and over they will die of old age and not beat it.
Comments
Lets say your goal is to pick up 5 apples. Everytime you fail to pick an apple i.e drop one, you have to pick up an additional apple. Essentially what you are saying that picking up 10 apples is "harder" than picking up just 5 apples. The penalty does not apply challenge to this task. It does not make it harder - it only makes it more time-consuming like Axehilt said.
The point of difficulty is not the goal or the labor you put into it, it is whether you succeed or not and improving your skill in order to succeed. Getting to the max level or getting enough money is an eventuality. You either do it fast or slow, but you'll reach your goal in the end.
Game is difficult when there is a chance that you will not succeed - that if you do not play properly, you will not beat that boss, and will not advance in the game. In no way does any form of experience penalty or money loss make that boss or encounter any harder to beat. Only way to pass that encounter is to plan, try again and play better.
Most people do not need further motivation to play well other than to advance in the game. Like I wrote earlier, I try my best not because I fear the death penalty, but because I want to win.
Harsh death penalty offers a cheap thrill for those who have a tendency to gambling, but it doesn't add challenge to those who find it only irritating. Whole games are based on this thrill like Blackjack. Infact the game is rather boring if there are no stakes. However the stakes do not make counting cards any more difficult than it is without them. Adding decks, on the other hand, do make it more difficult.
Can I not make it any more obvious?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The implicit assumption you make in this argument is that picking up apples is a dull activity that requires no real skill to perform. Therefore, having to pick up more apples if you drop some due to incompetence, does not make the task for difficult, just more tedious.
Well let's get rid of that assumption.
Assume now that the apples are absolutely coated with grease, and you have to cradle the apples you already picked up in your arm. If you drop any, you have to start over.
This task just got more difficult because now you have to pick up and HOLD 5 greasy apples simultaneously.
If you only had to pick up an apple 5 times where dropping it didn't matter, this would be much easier.
Also...I've never argued that harsh death penalties are "good." People say they can be frustrating and I completely agree. All I argue is that death penalties DO make the game harder because they force you to behave consistently skillfully.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Ultimately, I think this is the bit that some people are having trouble digesting. It's one of those things that is difficult to explain because it's usually life experience that teaches it.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Replace the "skillfully" with "cowardly" and I can agree, but otherwise no. I do not agree. Harsh death penalty does not add challenge. And you cannot transfer that greasy apples analogy to a game. My analogy is simple because it shows that an easy task does not become more challenging with penalty. That was the point of the analogy.
Even in the greasy apple scenario, you would have to learn to cradle 5 apples simultaneously. That is the requirement to succeed. You cannot complete the tast without mastering it. The penalty does not change that. Dropping apples only make failing that much frustrating - but only that.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
For players interested in getting through content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of delaying their progress. That would appear to present a greater challenge. It's like climbing a mountain. Each time you trip, you fall 100 meters down the mountain. Then you have to climb back up again. In that respect, there is a greater challenge to reach the top of the mountain.
For players interested in experiencing content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of distracting or handicapping the player. That would appear to present a greater challenge. In the example of climbing a mountain, you are trying to focus on your climbing technique. But if you're scared of falling, you're not devoting your full attention to your technique. Therefore, your technique is handicapped by a distraction, and mountain climbing is more difficult. The same could be said of wearing a blindfold.
For players like me, the harsh penalty for failure is uninteresting. I want content that is inherently challenging because it taxes my skills, not because it distracts me from using those skills. I'm certainly not in the camp of "getting through content". I want to experience the content. Which is why I don't bother with MMOs. My skills are not taxed, so there's not much for me to experience.
Yes. And that is called CREATING HARDER GAMEPLAY, not CREATING HARSHER DEATH PENALTY. it IS more difficult to pick up and hold 5 greasy apples as opposed to normal ones; you've made it more challenging but have NOT increased the Death Penalty.
Unless you're saying that every time you fail, the apples get "greasier".
You've removed the concept of failure from #2, so clearly #1 is more difficult.
But we're not talking about MMORPGs with completely zero death penalty. We're talking about MMORPGs with exactly as much penalty as is absolutely necessary; and no more.
So the correct comparison is:
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count.
Juggle for 30 rotations. Failure resets your count and Tony kicks you in the shin 10 times.
Because no game out there has zero consequences of failure, but the games in contention in this thread are the ones like #2, where excessive penalty is being added to an otherwise acceptable failure state.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Anyone trying to make the arguement of death penalty being a challenge just needs to cite the comparison of WoW's corpse run and EQ's corpse run. None of these other anologies are necessary, in fact they just give the other side more fuel
Yep I agree. I mean, you really see the impact of a "failure penalty" on the relatively difficulty of a task everywhere in the real world.
Look at surgeons. The reason they have to get so much training is because the consequence of their failure is extremely high (death). So we call surgery difficult, even though the actual physical action (i.e. arm/hand movements) of performing a surgery may be fairly simple and not require much special training to perform.
If botched surgeries caused absolutely no harm and mistakes could be very easily undone, surgeons would not require nearly as much training. In fact, they would probably even sell DIY surgery kits!
When the consequence of failure (risk) in completing some task is high, more skill is demanded from the person performing that task, thus the task is more difficult.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Tony kicking you in the shin is unrelated to juggling...it doesn't have an impact.
Most death penalties ARE related to your progress through the game (exp/loot/time loss), so they do have an impact.
A "tony kicks you in the shin" death penalty in an MMORPG would be something like if the game charged your credit card $5.00 every time you died. It's completely unrelated to your progress in the game.
Also, good luck juggling for 30 rotations with a broken shin
.
My point here is that just because there can be poorly designed death penalties that don't make a game more difficult, does not mean that all of them are this way.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
LOL!!!
My friend, think about that for a moment, and answer me this one question:
Do you think that surgeons ENJOY the fact that their failures during a surgery can have such dire consequences?
That is inconsequential. The question is "does a death penalty make the game more difficult?" I was never arguing that death penalties are "good" and that they should be harsh. I, like you, think they can be frustrating.
BUT, I recognize that they DO make the game more difficult. And you do need some kind of death penalty in the game, though not a veyr harsh one.
As an aside though, I do think surgeons probably enjoy the high income levels that are commensurate with the risk of their job
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
What do you suppose that training entails? Do you think it involves repeating the same process over and over again for 8 years? Or do you think it's practicing the process, then practicing what to do when things don't go as planned?
With anything you could call a career in life, a truly skilled person is determined less by how they perform their daily routine, and more about how they get things in order when that routine fails. And DP's don't help train someone in that regard, either.
Depends on the game itself. If a game is very easy, adding a tough death penalty will not make it more difficult or more challenging. You will still not die much if at all.
In addition, I personally find your commentary to be a fairly sweeping generalization. I may try to teach you how to play guitar, and you may work your arse off at it, and still be not quite as good as another student who "gets it" with much less effort than you are giving. In other words, there is such a thing as aptitude and natural ability. I myself will never be a good artistic painter no matter how hard I work at it.
So, for at least some players, playing at a high level of skill will be pretty effortless. For others it will be a struggle. That's just how things work.
I recommend you spend some time in world of warcraft, and see exactly how much better you become from lvl 25 until you reach 85.
If there was a chance that you would not reach max level because of a xp penalty upon your death, i really think players would atleast TRY to improve. But ofc this wouldn't work unless there was an actual risk of death while playing
.
And let's go a little farther with this... What situation do you think would better train a surgeon?
1. Making the training more difficult by hiding the organ behind sensitive areas, creating scenarios where the patient starts hemmorhaging, etc.
or
2. Every time they fail a surgery, you break one of their fingers?
* # 2 is based on penalties where you have "rez sickness"
I think if you kept the current penalty, but made the mobs about 2-3 levels harder, they'd try to improve, AND still enjoy the game. Maybe enjoy it a bit more.
Real life stuff is terrible because it's a reality we're all trying to escape heh. Lets stick to the game stuff
I think you're missing the point...
It doesn't matter what the training entails. The reason the training is there is because there is a harsh failure penalty. If there was no harsh failure penalty, there would not be a reason for such heavy training at all.
WITH a harsh failure penalty the training is much like you say, praciticing contingencies, learning all you can about the human body so you can recognize when something goes wrong etc...
WITHOUT a harsh failure penalty the training would probably consist of a book labeled "surgery for dummies."
There is no reason to waste time training for something that has no real penalty for failure. Because you can just do it over and over again (in real practice) until you finally succeed.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
That's assuming that the task at hand is NEVER (Edited) difficult.
Much as Scrog was saying, there is no reason to waste time training if you could get up, go to the bathroom, come back and find your character has auto attacked an orc to death. And the most insidious Death penalty will do little to change that.
Now, if you amp up the mobs, give them some nasty "tell-nukes", etc, a player will learn, "He's glowing red, I better interrupt him before he TPW's us!". And they'll learn that faster if they don't have to grind or corpse walk every time they fail...
On the other hand, if you amp up the DP, they'll just get fed up with corpse walking and quit.
You are doing the same mistake over and over again: you do not define any "objective". Without any objective, you cannot really start talking about how challenging something is, unless there is some consensus about an ultimate objective that everyone agrees on.
Sure, if the objective is to simply kill all bosses in a dungeon, then a strong death penalty may not affect the difficulty of completing that objective. However, as I said in my earlier post, if the objective is to achieve a certain amount of exp per hour groupwise, then yes it can matter., which I showed in the mmorpg-example in an older post.
So let me reiterate: define the objective/goal/mission before you start talking about the difficulty/challenge.
I totally agree with your statement...but, your statement HAS A DEATH PENALTY IN IT.
You say "And they'll learn that faster if they don't (want to) have to grind or corpose walk everytime they fail."
Well what do you think grind or corpse walking is? A DEATH PENALTY!
Would you not agree, that if we take your scenario, but we remove the death penalty entirely, that it would be easier? In other words, when you die, you instantly respawn where you just died with full health and mana and no losses at all. Wouldn't this be easier than having to walk back to your corpse when you die? Also, wouldn't this completely remove any incentive for players to train? They could just bang their head against a hard mob until it died.
This is an extreme example, it's basically the opposite of permadeath. But it illustrates a point. Death penalties DO contribute to the difficulty of the game.
This DOES NOT mean that you can just increase the death penalty arbitrarily and make the game more challenging through that mechanism alone. At some point, it will just become frustrating.
But on the same token, increasing encounter difficulty can do the exact same thing. Imagine a game with a WoW death penalty where the MOBs are so difficult that it takes about 20 tries to kill one. This would be ridiculously frustrating, no one would play it.
You have to strike a balance between the cost of failure (death penalty) and the risk of failure (encounter difficulty) to have a good, challenging game.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This is not RL. In a game you can design the scenario that you can't just 'fail your way to success'. If the encounter is properly designed you can't 'gang your head against a hard mob until it died'. The standard non-harsh death penalty is that if you fail an encounter you have to restart it from the beginning and all the starting conditions reset. This prevents 'fail to succeed' scenarios since the player has to learn in order to beat the encounter and if they just repeat the same mistake over and over they will die of old age and not beat it.