Risk creates stress, stress make the brain not work as well as it does when its not stressed. It take more practice to train your mind to do the same thing under stress that you can do while not under stress.
therefore risk actually REDUCES your skill level but the perfecting your baseline skill level to work while under risk increases your skill in that skill but to perfect that skill to that level you actually train while NOT under stress.
Hmmm... not sure I can agree.
Are you saying that humans are constructed in such a way that if one were faced with great real life danger that the decision to flee or fight cannot be made as well as it would be if you were perfectly calm?
Stress and adrenaline get us prepared to face danger. Don't they?
Stress and adrenaline make you do very limited skills extreemly well and beyond what your body can normally do but it actually does that my reducing you ability to think as well as you can while not under stress. Most importantly stress primarly is to get your body into motion which in a video game is simulated so it doesnt do you a lot of good that your body is saying run while you are sitting in a chair, thus confusing your thinking.
I suppose that's a fair point. I will follow up with this question.
Why do people like horror movies?
well liking something and skill are two different things. People like horror movies the same reason they like risky games, adrenaline gets you high
Exacty my point. I don't really think stress is a factor just because of the presence of a severe penalty. However, I think there is a possibility of becoming stressed and frustrated if something bad repeatedly happened to you. But just because of its presence? No... I don't think so.
In the same way horror movies are fun, so it is that danger adds spice to a game.
There is probably such a thing as taking the concept too far, however. For example, the very real possibility that you could be in a situation where your corpse was quite literally unrecoverable no matter how much help you got (EQ1).
I could dig up some sources but yes, stress reduces your ability to think. So..if you equate skill level to complex actions then yes, the existance of stress reduces your skill.
So for example, if you need to do 10 tasks in a specific way under stress you could do 4 very very well, but 10 less well than you could not under stress.
That is how it has been explained to me more than once and I experience it as such too.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
Harsher death penalty in a WOW-clone equals less subscribers, not equals a greater challenge.
Difficulty = how much skill is required to avoid failure.
Penalty = what happens if you fail and to have counter balance.
Therefore death penalty doesn't make games harder. It just makes them more painful or inconvenient.
Let me fix Penalty for you.
You have to weigh the good with the bad to have balance. A death penality is the balance for character death. It's only inconvenient to usually the wow players or new age players.
Or to gamers who played games before MMOs and understand that things can be both fun and challenging without being wasteful time dumps.
Death used to mean instantly restarting and playing the game. Oldchool MMORPGs often call this "no penalty" but in fact it's exactly as much penalty as is needed (and no more) which is the ideal DP for any game to have.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
I agree to a point. Depends on what the actual penatly is.
Let's say it is only XP loss, albeit a large and painful one.
Well, that penalty does not at all affect how you perform against an enemy. If you die, your situation is now actually less of a challenge and more like tedium to get back to where you were. You've already done it after all and know what to do. And probably know the mobs you'll fight quite intimately by then.
The same cannot be said for a corpse run, however. Especially if you approach your corpse naked and all the mobs that just killed you are still there.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
Harsher death penalty in a WOW-clone equals less subscribers, not equals a greater challenge.
I agree and I said so. It does equal less suscribers but it also does equal a greater challenge
So many people like to twist it around as to deter from the facts,but simply put ,if there is no challenge,then why would a harsh death penalty even matter?
The obvious is that yes of course the challenging game play is what makes it matter,but w/o a harsh penalty then again who cares,since you can just treat it like a rinse and repeat application.
So bottom line is BOTH matter.For those that really cannot see it,the penalty is needed because there is no real death,so it acts a close simulation to death[or it should],but penalties as we see them in games is a real joke,might as well call it rinse and repeat easy mode.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Risk creates stress, stress make the brain not work as well as it does when its not stressed. It take more practice to train your mind to do the same thing under stress that you can do while not under stress.
therefore risk actually REDUCES your skill level but the perfecting your baseline skill level to work while under risk increases your skill in that skill but to perfect that skill to that level you actually train while NOT under stress.
Hmmm... not sure I can agree.
Are you saying that humans are constructed in such a way that if one were faced with great real life danger that the decision to flee or fight cannot be made as well as it would be if you were perfectly calm?
Stress and adrenaline get us prepared to face danger. Don't they?
Stress and adrenaline make you do very limited skills extreemly well and beyond what your body can normally do but it actually does that my reducing you ability to think as well as you can while not under stress. Most importantly stress primarly is to get your body into motion which in a video game is simulated so it doesnt do you a lot of good that your body is saying run while you are sitting in a chair, thus confusing your thinking.
I suppose that's a fair point. I will follow up with this question.
Why do people like horror movies?
well liking something and skill are two different things. People like horror movies the same reason they like risky games, adrenaline gets you high
Exacty my point. I don't really think stress is a factor just because of the presence of a severe penalty. However, I think there is a possibility of becoming stressed and frustrated if something bad repeatedly happened to you. But just because of its presence? No... I don't think so.
In the same way horror movies are fun, so it is that danger adds spice to a game.
There is probably such a thing as taking the concept too far, however. For example, the very real possibility that you could be in a situation where your corpse was quite literally unrecoverable no matter how much help you got (EQ1).
I could dig up some sources but yes, stress reduces your ability to think. So..if you equate skill level to complex actions then yes, the existance of stress reduces your skill.
So for example, if you need to do 10 tasks in a specific way under stress you could do 4 very very well, but 10 less well than you could not under stress.
That is how it has been explained to me more than once and I experience it as such too.
Bear in mind that an appropriate stress response is a healthy and necessary part of life. One of the things it does is to release norepinephrine, one of the principal excitatory neurotransmitters. Norepinephrine is needed to create new memories. It improves mood. Problems feel more like challenges, which encourages creative thinking that stimulates your brain to grow new connections within itself.
Some kinds of acute stress are beneficial. For example, Ohio State University researchers found that stress from engaging in a memory task activated the immune system, whereas the stress from passively watching a violent video weakened immunity (as measured by salivary concentration of SIgA, a major immune factor).
Problem-solving. Creative thinking. Sense of accomplishment... bring on the challenge in MMOs.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Risk creates stress, stress make the brain not work as well as it does when its not stressed. It take more practice to train your mind to do the same thing under stress that you can do while not under stress.
therefore risk actually REDUCES your skill level but the perfecting your baseline skill level to work while under risk increases your skill in that skill but to perfect that skill to that level you actually train while NOT under stress.
Hmmm... not sure I can agree.
Are you saying that humans are constructed in such a way that if one were faced with great real life danger that the decision to flee or fight cannot be made as well as it would be if you were perfectly calm?
Stress and adrenaline get us prepared to face danger. Don't they?
Stress and adrenaline make you do very limited skills extreemly well and beyond what your body can normally do but it actually does that my reducing you ability to think as well as you can while not under stress. Most importantly stress primarly is to get your body into motion which in a video game is simulated so it doesnt do you a lot of good that your body is saying run while you are sitting in a chair, thus confusing your thinking.
I suppose that's a fair point. I will follow up with this question.
Why do people like horror movies?
well liking something and skill are two different things. People like horror movies the same reason they like risky games, adrenaline gets you high
Exacty my point. I don't really think stress is a factor just because of the presence of a severe penalty. However, I think there is a possibility of becoming stressed and frustrated if something bad repeatedly happened to you. But just because of its presence? No... I don't think so.
In the same way horror movies are fun, so it is that danger adds spice to a game.
There is probably such a thing as taking the concept too far, however. For example, the very real possibility that you could be in a situation where your corpse was quite literally unrecoverable no matter how much help you got (EQ1).
I could dig up some sources but yes, stress reduces your ability to think. So..if you equate skill level to complex actions then yes, the existance of stress reduces your skill.
So for example, if you need to do 10 tasks in a specific way under stress you could do 4 very very well, but 10 less well than you could not under stress.
That is how it has been explained to me more than once and I experience it as such too.
Sorry if I wasn't very clear. Let me try again.
I am not disagreeing. What I'm saying is that the mere preesence of a strict death penalty does not itself cause stress. At least it didn't to me. Danger and stress are not quite the same thing.
However, repeatedly incurring that penalty just might do the trick.
So, from my point of view, it wasn't like I wandered the world as a stress ball in EQ1 constantly fearing the worst, but rather gave healthy respect to places that I had no business being yet. I didn't really consider myself anything more than an average joe player, and I never got frustrated or stressed in the normal course of routine play.
Risk creates stress, stress make the brain not work as well as it does when its not stressed. It take more practice to train your mind to do the same thing under stress that you can do while not under stress.
therefore risk actually REDUCES your skill level but the perfecting your baseline skill level to work while under risk increases your skill in that skill but to perfect that skill to that level you actually train while NOT under stress.
Hmmm... not sure I can agree.
Are you saying that humans are constructed in such a way that if one were faced with great real life danger that the decision to flee or fight cannot be made as well as it would be if you were perfectly calm?
Stress and adrenaline get us prepared to face danger. Don't they?
Stress and adrenaline make you do very limited skills extreemly well and beyond what your body can normally do but it actually does that my reducing you ability to think as well as you can while not under stress. Most importantly stress primarly is to get your body into motion which in a video game is simulated so it doesnt do you a lot of good that your body is saying run while you are sitting in a chair, thus confusing your thinking.
I suppose that's a fair point. I will follow up with this question.
Why do people like horror movies?
well liking something and skill are two different things. People like horror movies the same reason they like risky games, adrenaline gets you high
Exacty my point. I don't really think stress is a factor just because of the presence of a severe penalty. However, I think there is a possibility of becoming stressed and frustrated if something bad repeatedly happened to you. But just because of its presence? No... I don't think so.
In the same way horror movies are fun, so it is that danger adds spice to a game.
There is probably such a thing as taking the concept too far, however. For example, the very real possibility that you could be in a situation where your corpse was quite literally unrecoverable no matter how much help you got (EQ1).
I could dig up some sources but yes, stress reduces your ability to think. So..if you equate skill level to complex actions then yes, the existance of stress reduces your skill.
So for example, if you need to do 10 tasks in a specific way under stress you could do 4 very very well, but 10 less well than you could not under stress.
That is how it has been explained to me more than once and I experience it as such too.
Sorry if I wasn't very clear. Let me try again.
I am not disagreeing. What I'm saying is that the mere preesence of a strict death penalty does not itself cause stress. At least it didn't to me. Danger and stress are not quite the same thing.
However, repeatedly incurring that penalty just might do the trick.
So, from my point of view, it wasn't like I wandered the world as a stress ball in EQ1 constantly fearing the worst, but rather gave healthy respect to places that I had no business being yet. I didn't really consider myself anyting more than an average joe player, and I never got frustrated or stressed in the normal course of routine play.
The nerd-o-meter levels are shooting up in this thread.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
I will try to explain this again using Halo FPS as an example.
I forgot the guy's name, who set the record time for beating Halo 2 Legendary mode without dying. (SO LETS JUST CALL HIM MMOEXPOSED OK)
Well MMOexposed, set a record time for beating Halo 2 in Legendary mode without dying.
Clearly MMOexposed, is skilled at playing Halo 2.
we all clear up to this part right?
-----------
Well like stated in the OP, Halo 2 has 4 difficulty modes. The DP doesnt change in any of them. I repeat, the Death Penalty DOES NOT CHANGE IN ANY OF THEM.
Yet some how the game is able to get harder and harder depending on which mode I am in.
Ok back to the story:
MMOexposed is now requested by a developer to play Halo 2 on Easy mode.
MMOexposed easily plays through it without dying. Hey if he can beat it in Legendary mode without dying, doing the same thing in Easy mode, is well,,,, Easy.
Now after the Developers see the MMOexposed is well capable of completing the easy gameplay without death, they now challenge him to,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Play a new version of Easy mode. But this version of Easy mode, has a Super Harsh DEATH PENALTY added to it.
*Each time you die, you have to pay the Developers 50% of your current money.
*Each time you die, you have to start all the way over from the first mission. No check points.
*Each time you die, you lose 50% of the Ammo on that mission.
*each time you die, you heath Recharge timer becomes harder and harder to regenerate.
*Each time you die, you house blows up!
*etc, you get the idea. add what ever else you think of for a HDP.
Well, with the newly added HDP system added to easy mode, does it make easy mode more harder? Would Easy mode, now be considered on the same difficulty as Legendary mode was to MMOexposed? or is it just as Easy as before the HDP was added?
Seems to me, nothing changed about the Difficulty of Easy mode. Death had no effect on the challenge, since MMOexpose can beat the same gameplay without dying before the HDP was added, how would the HDP system that the developers added, make it HARDER for MMOexposed? Its the same level of Challenge as before .
So many people like to twist it around as to deter from the facts,but simply put ,if there is no challenge,then why would a harsh death penalty even matter?
The obvious is that yes of course the challenging game play is what makes it matter,but w/o a harsh penalty then again who cares,since you can just treat it like a rinse and repeat application.
So bottom line is BOTH matter.For those that really cannot see it,the penalty is needed because there is no real death,so it acts a close simulation to death[or it should],but penalties as we see them in games is a real joke,might as well call it rinse and repeat easy mode.
I disagree. I die many times in Halo on legendary mode. I still fill accomplished when I complete it.
And that games has the same DP for all modes. the Challenge is what makes it fun. not the consequences for failure.
Who in there right mind, wants to fail?
I die, I start over from where I was.
No matter how many times I try it over and over,,,,, IF I DONT HAVE THE SKILL NEEDED TO BEAT HALO ON LEGENDARY MODE,,,,I NEVER WILL BEAT IT!! RINSE AND REPEAT DOESNT SOLVE ANYTHING.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
Roguelike games are very fun and have a fairly large following. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a great up-to-date example.
The death penalty there is PERMANENT death. No saves. Start over.
VERY VERY fun and of course this death penalty makes it more challenging. If you were able to reload and keep going pretty much anybody could beat it. As it stands now most cannot.
Roguelikes prove that even the harshest of death penalties can work, if the game is interesting enough and diverse enough to warrant many many play-throughs.
In fact, this death penalty inspires those that play it. Forums are filled with posts about YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death). Be careless even once and you are staring at that promising characters tombstone describing its demise, and seeing where you fall on the list of your previous 100 playthroughs...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind" 1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN 2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
Roguelike games are very fun and have a fairly large following. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a great up-to-date example.
The death penalty there is PERMANENT death. No saves. Start over.
VERY VERY fun and of course this death penalty makes it more challenging. If you were able to reload and keep going pretty much anybody could beat it. As it stands now most cannot.
Roguelikes prove that even the harshest of death penalties can work, if the game is interesting enough and diverse enough to warrant many many play-throughs...
A fair point and this is where some of us might be tripping over some concepts here.
It IS more challenging to complete the run. However, the difficulty of the combat is unchanged.
This is why slot machines offer some of the toughest gameplay around. All those little old white haired ladies going to the casinos? Hardcore gamers.
I mean, what's the 'harsh death penalty' in an MMO? You waste a couple hours maybe? There's not many MMOs that go so far as to even use permadeath.
Look at a slot machine. The harsh death penalties of even a couple hours of play can run into the hundreds of dollars.
You could buy a fully leveled character to replace your permadeath lost character, right there.
Slot machines have a harsher death penalty than MMORPGs = Slot machines are definitely way more challenging and engaging than the easy weak sauce MMORPG games.
When you're all older and grown up and can appreciate TRUE difficulty, you'll all be going to casinos too. :<
You seem to place high value on money. Not everyone does. For some, time, reputation, resources and other factors may be of greater value and thus offer greater risk for their actions or encounters.
So in a risk reward situation, do you like ot increase the rewards? Do you like to decrease the risks? I think the whole reward risk point is really about getting more reward. People tend to make the risk as low as possible.
People will always bring the risk to their comfort level, but different people have different levels. Several games offer varying degrees of risk and reward so that players can opt in and out of what they are looking for that particular day. Note that I am saying that an indivudal player will want to change their levels of risk, and that is a distinct and crucial part of how several MMOs are designed.
UO, Puzzle Pirates and EVE Online all offer the opportunity to quickly alter the level of risk one is willing to take and, as such the rewards possible a) in the same game world/shard and b) on the same character. The ability to transition for near perfect safety and basic rewards to a dangerous hostile environment with high rewards is always present and can usually be done rather quickly. Players can adjust their game experience to suit the current mood they are in. In each of these games, players are more likely to experiment with higher risk environments now and then because
they know they can always retreat to their comfort zone
they are playing a character they are more comfortable with (their "main" or their main account)
they have a higher chance of access to assets to recoup from any losses experienced
When players know that they can throttle back to their comfort level, they are more likely to take more risks.More often than not, the option to take risks means grinding up a completely different character (often one they have little attachment to) on a completely different server without access to the levels, community resources and wealth they are accustomed to. In that light, the thought of trying a higher risk engagement is not palatable because it goes against everything they have grown attached to or comfortable with.
So, to answer the question of "So in a risk reward situation, do you like ot increase the rewards?" my suggestion is to increase the accessibility of high-risk or challenging content and make retreat to one's comfort level as quick and easy as possible. This increases the chance of people dipping their toes into more challenging waters now and then and, in some cases, stepping into a different tier of gameplay that they had the chance to try out and decide that they like.
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
So say a raid takes X amount of skill and has no Dealth penelty. My group of average players attempt the boss 100 times, and beat it because we wipe and instantly rez. We are pretty great!
So another group does a raid that takes the same X amount of skill with a DP of credits/Small XP loss/item decay. They wipe 9 times as they form a strategy that they discuss and reform. They beat the boss on the 10th try. They are pretty great.
A final group attempts the same raid boss with X skill required, but with a DP of you lose all your armor/weapons if you die. They quit the game. They are pretty great, in a different way.
When you add some sort of DP, as long as it is not extreme, you push players to improve quicker. My group would attempt a harder boss, and because wiping doesn't matter, we learn a bit slower since we have no real reason to worry about dying. Someone in the group walk in the fire and wipe us? Oh well! We instantly rez, go again, no worries.
The second group is pushed to be better quicker, for the risk of losing money, xp, or their items decaying. It's not something that breaks many people, but it's another incentive to be better quicker.
There are plenty of examples you could make of this in real life. But those aren't exactly the same thing as a virtual world. As some points brought up in this thread sound very silly when compared to a fake death. What matters in relation to the game is TIME. Not money/xp/item decay, but the time spent having to make up for those things. If you are motivated by TIME to not have to work to replace what you lost to DP, it can help you improve. Sure wiping over and over is the loss of time, but it's not mulitplied by having to go out and fix your stuff/xp/get more credits.
And this really does come down to opinion. YOU might feel no DP is the challenge. You might feel perma death is the best.
Difficulty = how much skill is required to avoid failure.
Penalty = what happens if you fail.
Therefore death penalty doesn't make games harder. It just makes them more painful or inconvenient.
I think addressing this helps solidify the argument a bit more. The two go hand in hand. That is, if a game is challenging, you will "die" (or whatever the game mechanic may be) fairly often. If the penalty is high as well, it makes sure that players are avoiding death even more. Being reckless and lucky can get you through some "difficult" games if the penalty is light, while an easy game with a harsh death penalty suddenly seems more difficult merely because you have to focus a little more. For console gaming, IMO, it's important to balance the two, since the idea is that most people will want to see your entire game, but it needs to last a bit.
MMOs are a different beast though. Harsh death penalties are needed for some content. Look at WoW's pvp. It's largely considered a joke because no matter how many times you kill someone, they can come back and get round 2, sometimes before you even have a chance to heal up, which can lead to pvp degrading into a simple zerg fest. On the other hand, too harsh of a penalty may drive players away from a game (I can't get your average gamer to even give EVE or Darkfall a try because the idea of losing items is devastating to them).
Let's try some concrete examples.
The Pokemon Colosseum series was frustrating as hell (and apparently cheated in some cases by making low accuracy moves more accurate for the NPC trainers). I would literally have to leave the room and take a walk at times because I'd get so angry. Losing meant having to start all over again, which cost time, but I didn't, say, lose poke-levels or anything. The game had a high difficulty, but low punishment.
Switch to FF11. The game wasn't hard IMO, but the penalty was high. I had trouble finding people to group with me, so I soloed in the wilds. Every once in awhile, someone would train mobs on me and I'd die and lose a chunk of xp. I actually spent a weekend bouncing between level 11 and 13, until finally swearing off the game. I wanted to see more of FF11, but the high death penalty and inability to progress brought additional challenges to the simplicity of the core game.
You experience in FF1 isn't "additional challenges" but rather "additional inconveniences".
The ability for players to train mobs onto you was the "additional challenge" at hand.
Whether a minority considers WOW PVP a joke doesn't change the fact that instanced PVP games are dramatically more popular than world PVP games, for very clear design reasons (most people PVP as a contest of skill, rather than a contest of playtime and friend count.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
but its challenging not having to deal with it as well. Matter of fact, the difficulty would not have changed at all, if we swapped the DP.
so again, my point stands. the Gameplay is the Challenge, not the Penalty for death. you are confusing the two.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
but its challenging not having to deal with it as well. Matter of fact, the difficulty would not have changed at all, if we swapped the DP.
so again, my point stands. the Gameplay is the Challenge, not the Penalty for death. you are confusing the two.
You are both right. There.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
but its challenging not having to deal with it as well. Matter of fact, the difficulty would not have changed at all, if we swapped the DP.
so again, my point stands. the Gameplay is the Challenge, not the Penalty for death. you are confusing the two.
If you don't die there is no challenge from a harsh death penalty
So say a raid takes X amount of skill and has no Dealth penelty. My group of average players attempt the boss 100 times, and beat it because we wipe and instantly rez. We are pretty great!
What is this mysterious (and poorly-designed) MMORPG which lets you graveyard-zerg a raid boss?
Any decent MMORPG has anti-zerg measures in place. When you wipe, the boss resets and you have to start over. So if your group doesn't have X amount of skill you'd never beat that boss.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So say a raid takes X amount of skill and has no Dealth penelty. My group of average players attempt the boss 100 times, and beat it because we wipe and instantly rez. We are pretty great!
So another group does a raid that takes the same X amount of skill with a DP of credits/Small XP loss/item decay. They wipe 9 times as they form a strategy that they discuss and reform. They beat the boss on the 10th try. They are pretty great.
A final group attempts the same raid boss with X skill required, but with a DP of you lose all your armor/weapons if you die. They quit the game. They are pretty great, in a different way.
When you add some sort of DP, as long as it is not extreme, you push players to improve quicker. My group would attempt a harder boss, and because wiping doesn't matter, we learn a bit slower since we have no real reason to worry about dying. Someone in the group walk in the fire and wipe us? Oh well! We instantly rez, go again, no worries.
The second group is pushed to be better quicker, for the risk of losing money, xp, or their items decaying. It's not something that breaks many people, but it's another incentive to be better quicker.
There are plenty of examples you could make of this in real life. But those aren't exactly the same thing as a virtual world. As some points brought up in this thread sound very silly when compared to a fake death. What matters in relation to the game is TIME. Not money/xp/item decay, but the time spent having to make up for those things. If you are motivated by TIME to not have to work to replace what you lost to DP, it can help you improve. Sure wiping over and over is the loss of time, but it's not mulitplied by having to go out and fix your stuff/xp/get more credits.
And this really does come down to opinion. YOU might feel no DP is the challenge. You might feel perma death is the best.
Try playing Darkfall. Or Eve Online, in Eve if you lose your ship it could take a month of grinding to get it back.
The title of the post says challenge. Harder gameplay is a challenge, harsh death penalty is a challenge. It very well can be inconvient for someone and joyous for someone else. Changing one word as the thread evolves allows for completely different meanings and for each person to find some truth in their posts heh.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
but its challenging not having to deal with it as well. Matter of fact, the difficulty would not have changed at all, if we swapped the DP.
so again, my point stands. the Gameplay is the Challenge, not the Penalty for death. you are confusing the two.
If you don't die there is no challenge from a harsh death penalty
The most common death penalty is XP loss.
Exactly what challenge that does that present players?
As I said earlier getting back is not a challenge at all. You simply go back and do the things that you've already done. Seems like a yawn situation rather than a challenge of any sort.
Roguelike games are very fun and have a fairly large following. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a great up-to-date example.
The death penalty there is PERMANENT death. No saves. Start over.
VERY VERY fun and of course this death penalty makes it more challenging. If you were able to reload and keep going pretty much anybody could beat it. As it stands now most cannot.
Roguelikes prove that even the harshest of death penalties can work, if the game is interesting enough and diverse enough to warrant many many play-throughs...
A fair point and this is where some of us might be tripping over some concepts here.
It IS more challenging to complete the run. However, the difficulty of the combat is unchanged.
Difficulty of combat may be theoretically unchanged, but due to the nature of this harsh death penalty the typical player would have much higher skills/tactics than in the no penalty game. When there is no death penalty, you tend to solve a lot of problems by just repeatedly throwing yourself at it, perhaps bringing more firepower with you and just muscle through it.
In a harsh death penalty game, you develop many more survival tacticts that are completely unnecessary in a no death penalty game. You also tend to run away more and have a strategy for doing so. You develop stategies for dealing with more situations.
So the combat is fundamentally different. Some probably don't like that extra adrenaline of facing a possible death in a high penalty game, just like some don't like PVP or other game mechanic. But to me a game without death penalty is very lifeless and artificial.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind" 1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN 2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
So say a raid takes X amount of skill and has no Dealth penelty. My group of average players attempt the boss 100 times, and beat it because we wipe and instantly rez. We are pretty great!
So another group does a raid that takes the same X amount of skill with a DP of credits/Small XP loss/item decay. They wipe 9 times as they form a strategy that they discuss and reform. They beat the boss on the 10th try. They are pretty great.
A final group attempts the same raid boss with X skill required, but with a DP of you lose all your armor/weapons if you die. They quit the game. They are pretty great, in a different way.
When you add some sort of DP, as long as it is not extreme, you push players to improve quicker. My group would attempt a harder boss, and because wiping doesn't matter, we learn a bit slower since we have no real reason to worry about dying. Someone in the group walk in the fire and wipe us? Oh well! We instantly rez, go again, no worries.
The second group is pushed to be better quicker, for the risk of losing money, xp, or their items decaying. It's not something that breaks many people, but it's another incentive to be better quicker.
There are plenty of examples you could make of this in real life. But those aren't exactly the same thing as a virtual world. As some points brought up in this thread sound very silly when compared to a fake death. What matters in relation to the game is TIME. Not money/xp/item decay, but the time spent having to make up for those things. If you are motivated by TIME to not have to work to replace what you lost to DP, it can help you improve. Sure wiping over and over is the loss of time, but it's not mulitplied by having to go out and fix your stuff/xp/get more credits.
And this really does come down to opinion. YOU might feel no DP is the challenge. You might feel perma death is the best.
Instead of approaching it by instilling a fear of punishment, why not reward people for excelling or improving? Maybe increase the reward for faster completion, better accuracy, most beheadings, least amount of traps sprung and and other measures? Two games that currently go that route are Free Realms and Vindictus. Both offer extra bonuses and rewards for completing certain objectives during the game/instance/battle, and neither of them have anything significant down the line of a death penalty.
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
Comments
I could dig up some sources but yes, stress reduces your ability to think. So..if you equate skill level to complex actions then yes, the existance of stress reduces your skill.
So for example, if you need to do 10 tasks in a specific way under stress you could do 4 very very well, but 10 less well than you could not under stress.
That is how it has been explained to me more than once and I experience it as such too.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Harsher death penalty in a WOW-clone equals less subscribers, not equals a greater challenge.
Or to gamers who played games before MMOs and understand that things can be both fun and challenging without being wasteful time dumps.
Death used to mean instantly restarting and playing the game. Oldchool MMORPGs often call this "no penalty" but in fact it's exactly as much penalty as is needed (and no more) which is the ideal DP for any game to have.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I agree to a point. Depends on what the actual penatly is.
Let's say it is only XP loss, albeit a large and painful one.
Well, that penalty does not at all affect how you perform against an enemy. If you die, your situation is now actually less of a challenge and more like tedium to get back to where you were. You've already done it after all and know what to do. And probably know the mobs you'll fight quite intimately by then.
The same cannot be said for a corpse run, however. Especially if you approach your corpse naked and all the mobs that just killed you are still there.
Yes, THAT is a challenge.
I agree and I said so. It does equal less suscribers but it also does equal a greater challenge
So many people like to twist it around as to deter from the facts,but simply put ,if there is no challenge,then why would a harsh death penalty even matter?
The obvious is that yes of course the challenging game play is what makes it matter,but w/o a harsh penalty then again who cares,since you can just treat it like a rinse and repeat application.
So bottom line is BOTH matter.For those that really cannot see it,the penalty is needed because there is no real death,so it acts a close simulation to death[or it should],but penalties as we see them in games is a real joke,might as well call it rinse and repeat easy mode.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Stress is Not All Bad
Bear in mind that an appropriate stress response is a healthy and necessary part of life. One of the things it does is to release norepinephrine, one of the principal excitatory neurotransmitters. Norepinephrine is needed to create new memories. It improves mood. Problems feel more like challenges, which encourages creative thinking that stimulates your brain to grow new connections within itself.
Stress Activates Immune System-Study
Some kinds of acute stress are beneficial. For example, Ohio State University researchers found that stress from engaging in a memory task activated the immune system, whereas the stress from passively watching a violent video weakened immunity (as measured by salivary concentration of SIgA, a major immune factor).
Problem-solving. Creative thinking. Sense of accomplishment... bring on the challenge in MMOs.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Sorry if I wasn't very clear. Let me try again.
I am not disagreeing. What I'm saying is that the mere preesence of a strict death penalty does not itself cause stress. At least it didn't to me. Danger and stress are not quite the same thing.
However, repeatedly incurring that penalty just might do the trick.
So, from my point of view, it wasn't like I wandered the world as a stress ball in EQ1 constantly fearing the worst, but rather gave healthy respect to places that I had no business being yet. I didn't really consider myself anything more than an average joe player, and I never got frustrated or stressed in the normal course of routine play.
The nerd-o-meter levels are shooting up in this thread.
But as the example given about the Bridge, nothing about the Lava, change how easy/hard jumping over it will be. Its the same difficulty.
I will try to explain this again using Halo FPS as an example.
I forgot the guy's name, who set the record time for beating Halo 2 Legendary mode without dying. (SO LETS JUST CALL HIM MMOEXPOSED OK)
Well MMOexposed, set a record time for beating Halo 2 in Legendary mode without dying.
Clearly MMOexposed, is skilled at playing Halo 2.
we all clear up to this part right?
-----------
Well like stated in the OP, Halo 2 has 4 difficulty modes. The DP doesnt change in any of them. I repeat, the Death Penalty DOES NOT CHANGE IN ANY OF THEM.
Yet some how the game is able to get harder and harder depending on which mode I am in.
Ok back to the story:
MMOexposed is now requested by a developer to play Halo 2 on Easy mode.
MMOexposed easily plays through it without dying. Hey if he can beat it in Legendary mode without dying, doing the same thing in Easy mode, is well,,,, Easy.
Now after the Developers see the MMOexposed is well capable of completing the easy gameplay without death, they now challenge him to,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Play a new version of Easy mode. But this version of Easy mode, has a Super Harsh DEATH PENALTY added to it.
*Each time you die, you have to pay the Developers 50% of your current money.
*Each time you die, you have to start all the way over from the first mission. No check points.
*Each time you die, you lose 50% of the Ammo on that mission.
*each time you die, you heath Recharge timer becomes harder and harder to regenerate.
*Each time you die, you house blows up!
*etc, you get the idea. add what ever else you think of for a HDP.
Well, with the newly added HDP system added to easy mode, does it make easy mode more harder? Would Easy mode, now be considered on the same difficulty as Legendary mode was to MMOexposed? or is it just as Easy as before the HDP was added?
Seems to me, nothing changed about the Difficulty of Easy mode. Death had no effect on the challenge, since MMOexpose can beat the same gameplay without dying before the HDP was added, how would the HDP system that the developers added, make it HARDER for MMOexposed? Its the same level of Challenge as before .
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I disagree. I die many times in Halo on legendary mode. I still fill accomplished when I complete it.
And that games has the same DP for all modes. the Challenge is what makes it fun. not the consequences for failure.
Who in there right mind, wants to fail?
I die, I start over from where I was.
No matter how many times I try it over and over,,,,, IF I DONT HAVE THE SKILL NEEDED TO BEAT HALO ON LEGENDARY MODE,,,,I NEVER WILL BEAT IT!! RINSE AND REPEAT DOESNT SOLVE ANYTHING.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
It''s a challenge you have to deal with it. Now you and other people may view it as an inconvenience and other people may view it as something awesome. But it's still a challenge.
Roguelike games are very fun and have a fairly large following. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup a great up-to-date example.
The death penalty there is PERMANENT death. No saves. Start over.
VERY VERY fun and of course this death penalty makes it more challenging. If you were able to reload and keep going pretty much anybody could beat it. As it stands now most cannot.
Roguelikes prove that even the harshest of death penalties can work, if the game is interesting enough and diverse enough to warrant many many play-throughs.
In fact, this death penalty inspires those that play it. Forums are filled with posts about YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death). Be careless even once and you are staring at that promising characters tombstone describing its demise, and seeing where you fall on the list of your previous 100 playthroughs...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
A fair point and this is where some of us might be tripping over some concepts here.
It IS more challenging to complete the run. However, the difficulty of the combat is unchanged.
People will always bring the risk to their comfort level, but different people have different levels. Several games offer varying degrees of risk and reward so that players can opt in and out of what they are looking for that particular day. Note that I am saying that an indivudal player will want to change their levels of risk, and that is a distinct and crucial part of how several MMOs are designed.
UO, Puzzle Pirates and EVE Online all offer the opportunity to quickly alter the level of risk one is willing to take and, as such the rewards possible a) in the same game world/shard and b) on the same character. The ability to transition for near perfect safety and basic rewards to a dangerous hostile environment with high rewards is always present and can usually be done rather quickly. Players can adjust their game experience to suit the current mood they are in. In each of these games, players are more likely to experiment with higher risk environments now and then because
they know they can always retreat to their comfort zone
they are playing a character they are more comfortable with (their "main" or their main account)
they have a higher chance of access to assets to recoup from any losses experienced
When players know that they can throttle back to their comfort level, they are more likely to take more risks.More often than not, the option to take risks means grinding up a completely different character (often one they have little attachment to) on a completely different server without access to the levels, community resources and wealth they are accustomed to. In that light, the thought of trying a higher risk engagement is not palatable because it goes against everything they have grown attached to or comfortable with.
So, to answer the question of "So in a risk reward situation, do you like ot increase the rewards?" my suggestion is to increase the accessibility of high-risk or challenging content and make retreat to one's comfort level as quick and easy as possible. This increases the chance of people dipping their toes into more challenging waters now and then and, in some cases, stepping into a different tier of gameplay that they had the chance to try out and decide that they like.
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
So say a raid takes X amount of skill and has no Dealth penelty. My group of average players attempt the boss 100 times, and beat it because we wipe and instantly rez. We are pretty great!
So another group does a raid that takes the same X amount of skill with a DP of credits/Small XP loss/item decay. They wipe 9 times as they form a strategy that they discuss and reform. They beat the boss on the 10th try. They are pretty great.
A final group attempts the same raid boss with X skill required, but with a DP of you lose all your armor/weapons if you die. They quit the game. They are pretty great, in a different way.
When you add some sort of DP, as long as it is not extreme, you push players to improve quicker. My group would attempt a harder boss, and because wiping doesn't matter, we learn a bit slower since we have no real reason to worry about dying. Someone in the group walk in the fire and wipe us? Oh well! We instantly rez, go again, no worries.
The second group is pushed to be better quicker, for the risk of losing money, xp, or their items decaying. It's not something that breaks many people, but it's another incentive to be better quicker.
There are plenty of examples you could make of this in real life. But those aren't exactly the same thing as a virtual world. As some points brought up in this thread sound very silly when compared to a fake death. What matters in relation to the game is TIME. Not money/xp/item decay, but the time spent having to make up for those things. If you are motivated by TIME to not have to work to replace what you lost to DP, it can help you improve. Sure wiping over and over is the loss of time, but it's not mulitplied by having to go out and fix your stuff/xp/get more credits.
And this really does come down to opinion. YOU might feel no DP is the challenge. You might feel perma death is the best.
You experience in FF1 isn't "additional challenges" but rather "additional inconveniences".
The ability for players to train mobs onto you was the "additional challenge" at hand.
Whether a minority considers WOW PVP a joke doesn't change the fact that instanced PVP games are dramatically more popular than world PVP games, for very clear design reasons (most people PVP as a contest of skill, rather than a contest of playtime and friend count.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
but its challenging not having to deal with it as well. Matter of fact, the difficulty would not have changed at all, if we swapped the DP.
so again, my point stands. the Gameplay is the Challenge, not the Penalty for death. you are confusing the two.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
You are both right. There.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
If you don't die there is no challenge from a harsh death penalty
What is this mysterious (and poorly-designed) MMORPG which lets you graveyard-zerg a raid boss?
Any decent MMORPG has anti-zerg measures in place. When you wipe, the boss resets and you have to start over. So if your group doesn't have X amount of skill you'd never beat that boss.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Try playing Darkfall. Or Eve Online, in Eve if you lose your ship it could take a month of grinding to get it back.
You have a plethora of options, enjoy.
The most common death penalty is XP loss.
Exactly what challenge that does that present players?
As I said earlier getting back is not a challenge at all. You simply go back and do the things that you've already done. Seems like a yawn situation rather than a challenge of any sort.
Difficulty of combat may be theoretically unchanged, but due to the nature of this harsh death penalty the typical player would have much higher skills/tactics than in the no penalty game. When there is no death penalty, you tend to solve a lot of problems by just repeatedly throwing yourself at it, perhaps bringing more firepower with you and just muscle through it.
In a harsh death penalty game, you develop many more survival tacticts that are completely unnecessary in a no death penalty game. You also tend to run away more and have a strategy for doing so. You develop stategies for dealing with more situations.
So the combat is fundamentally different. Some probably don't like that extra adrenaline of facing a possible death in a high penalty game, just like some don't like PVP or other game mechanic. But to me a game without death penalty is very lifeless and artificial.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
Instead of approaching it by instilling a fear of punishment, why not reward people for excelling or improving? Maybe increase the reward for faster completion, better accuracy, most beheadings, least amount of traps sprung and and other measures? Two games that currently go that route are Free Realms and Vindictus. Both offer extra bonuses and rewards for completing certain objectives during the game/instance/battle, and neither of them have anything significant down the line of a death penalty.
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