Deaths in MMORPGs

vqly

Due to the nature of video game designs from the early beginning, deaths narrative have become the norm of game mechanics, for both players killing of npcs and also other players.  This is not a carebear post condemning violence or death in video games, however.  I am just curious how the game would play if the game world make actual deaths rare and extremely impactful?

Sure, you can say that the respawn and resurrection mechanics make death meaningless anyway, and that's the point.  It has become meaningless to video game players for the world they play in.  What I am talking about is the actual narrative of deaths.  When a player defeats a npc through combat, would the narrative be actually more impactful and non-immersion breaking if mobs doesn't just respawn, popping out of nowhere?  What if named bosses in world or dungeons wouldn't keep being "killed" day by day or week by week, saying and doing the same thing over and over again as if they weren't previously being killed hundreds of times before, etc.  But just run away or is wounded or yielded to the player (with the proper rewards for the battle), and have a recovery time before being able to be fought again?

Imagine a game world (possibly a martial art/modern world settings), where combat, including those against NPCs, does not end in death and despawn/respawn, with possibly the following features:

- combat ends in a npc or player yielding, unconscious, and/or wounded and needing recovery time as the mechanics.  NPC mobs and bosses would have recovery timer where they're in hiding for recovery.

- npc deaths will exists, but will be persistent and game world changing if a npc character died, even that of a nameless mob.  

- player deaths will not exists unless explicitly chosen by the player to "end of life" a particular character, with meaningful way to provide their descendants or another characters with resources gain.

- progression would still be marked by either xp earning from battles won, or skill base leveling base on actions used.

- if death was actually caused by a player, of a npc or other player, there should be major consequence to the character that does the killing, possibly forever branded as a killer, or hero with prestige of the killing, with penalties or rewards to be applied, and the history of it be recorded in the annals of history of the game forever more.


If such a game exists, will this affect players enjoyment in a positive or negative way? or not at all?

What do you guys think?

Ungood

vqly said:

Due to the nature of video game designs from the early beginning, deaths narrative have become the norm of game mechanics, for both players killing of npcs and also other players.  This is not a carebear post condemning violence or death in video games, however.  I am just curious how the game would play if the game world make actual deaths rare and extremely impactful?

Sure, you can say that the respawn and resurrection mechanics make death meaningless anyway, and that's the point.  It has become meaningless to video game players for the world they play in.  What I am talking about is the actual narrative of deaths.  When a player defeats a npc through combat, would the narrative be actually more impactful and non-immersion breaking if mobs doesn't just respawn, popping out of nowhere?  What if named bosses in world or dungeons wouldn't keep being "killed" day by day or week by week, saying and doing the same thing over and over again as if they weren't previously being killed hundreds of times before, etc.  But just run away or is wounded or yielded to the player (with the proper rewards for the battle), and have a recovery time before being able to be fought again?

Imagine a game world (possibly a martial art/modern world settings), where combat, including those against NPCs, does not end in death and despawn/respawn, with possibly the following features:

- combat ends in a npc or player yielding, unconscious, and/or wounded and needing recovery time as the mechanics.  NPC mobs and bosses would have recovery timer where they're in hiding for recovery.

- npc deaths will exists, but will be persistent and game world changing if a npc character died, even that of a nameless mob.  

- player deaths will not exists unless explicitly chosen by the player to "end of life" a particular character, with meaningful way to provide their descendants or another characters with resources gain.

- progression would still be marked by either xp earning from battles won, or skill base leveling base on actions used.

- if death was actually caused by a player, of a npc or other player, there should be major consequence to the character that does the killing, possibly forever branded as a killer, or hero with prestige of the killing, with penalties or rewards to be applied, and the history of it be recorded in the annals of history of the game forever more.


If such a game exists, will this affect players enjoyment in a positive or negative way? or not at all?

What do you guys think?

I can't say I know of a game exactly like this.

I will say, things like only being able to slay a mob once, will end in a very empty game, because players are brutal psychotic murder hobo's, and always have been since Table Top, where everything was a real and permanent as the DM wanted to make it.

as for Character Death Real or Perma-Death, that has been around for a long time.

vqly

Ungood said:

I will say, things like only being able to slay a mob once, will end in a very empty game, because players are brutal psychotic murder hobo's, and always have been since Table Top, where everything was a real and permanent as the DM wanted to make it.

Well the game will of course need to repopulate the world quickly via some mechanics to prevent an empty world from happening, but narratively (and visually) it will either be from an npc getting back up and dusting itself off and going on about its business, or coming out of hiding, or recovered from their wounds and returning, or wildlife repopulation from wandering out of a nest or shelter, and other means. 

Thinking about this, there could also be alternative to combat mechanics itself.  For example, instead of having quick 30 seconds combat to the death for every encounter,  combats could be something where you can disengage at any time, and xp/rewards/points are earned as you go during the combat itself, and not just only after you defeated an enemy.  And if a player chooses to engage the fight to the end, it can just be a result of the npc incapacitation, like a guard is knocked out or yielded, or ran away (to be returned later).

Ungood

vqly said:

Ungood said:

I will say, things like only being able to slay a mob once, will end in a very empty game, because players are brutal psychotic murder hobo's, and always have been since Table Top, where everything was a real and permanent as the DM wanted to make it.

Well the game will of course need to repopulate the world quickly via some mechanics to prevent an empty world from happening, but narratively (and visually) it will either be from an npc getting back up and dusting itself off and going on about its business, or coming out of hiding, or recovered from their wounds and returning, or wildlife repopulation from wandering out of a nest or shelter, and other means. 

Thinking about this, there could also be alternative to combat mechanics itself.  For example, instead of having quick 30 seconds combat to the death for every encounter,  combats could be something where you can disengage at any time, and xp/rewards/points are earned as you go during the combat itself, and not just only after you defeated an enemy.  And if a player chooses to engage the fight to the end, it can just be a result of the npc incapacitation, like a guard is knocked out or yielded, or ran away (to be returned later).

Jorgundal's clerics will just raise me.

It's a line from a quest called "The Crucible" in DDO.

cameltosis

vqly said:

Imagine a game world (possibly a martial art/modern world settings), where combat, including those against NPCs, does not end in death and despawn/respawn, with possibly the following features:

- combat ends in a npc or player yielding, unconscious, and/or wounded and needing recovery time as the mechanics.  NPC mobs and bosses would have recovery timer where they're in hiding for recovery.

- npc deaths will exists, but will be persistent and game world changing if a npc character died, even that of a nameless mob.  

- player deaths will not exists unless explicitly chosen by the player to "end of life" a particular character, with meaningful way to provide their descendants or another characters with resources gain.

- progression would still be marked by either xp earning from battles won, or skill base leveling base on actions used.

- if death was actually caused by a player, of a npc or other player, there should be major consequence to the character that does the killing, possibly forever branded as a killer, or hero with prestige of the killing, with penalties or rewards to be applied, and the history of it be recorded in the annals of history of the game forever more.


If such a game exists, will this affect players enjoyment in a positive or negative way? or not at all?

What do you guys think?

Interesting thought experiment.

I think there are two ways to look at the issue of death in games: mechanics and emotional impact.

On the mechanics front, I can't really see much changing with your ideas. Whether they "die" and later respawn, or whether they yield, the gameplay and the outcome are the same. I still have to fight them, I still win or lose, I still get rewards or a penalty. I think I would get annoyed having to wait for an enemy to recover and come back, but totally depends on how that is implemented.

Now, if we're talking perma-death of NPCs, that's a whole other ballgame. In principle, I'm in favour as this moves us closer to a virtual world feeling. However, totally depends on implementation. It becomes a real question of balancing player actions against the NPCs ability to live in the world. The NPCs need to be able to survive long enough to make an impact on the world, so that killing them permanently has any meaning.

Now, emotional impact, thats a tough one. How to increase the emotional impact of death in games?

In my opinion, there are two primary ways of creating an emotional bond with an NPC, and thereby adding meaning to their deaths.

The first is empathy. This is the primary way that stories make us connect with characters, whether it be in films, tv, books or games. So, in a game, stories that make us feel empathy towards a character are really only possible with scripted themepark content....but that wouldn't work in a game with permadeath. I'm not a fan of this method for a variety of reasons.

The second is historic interactions. What effect has that NPC had on you? Have you traded with them a lot? Have you hired them as a helper? Have they invaded your village? When you have developed a shared history with something, their death then has some genuine meaning, you will notice their absence. This is much better suited to games, in my opinion. Classic example of this is Aeris' death in FF7. If she were just an NPC, probably wouldn't care much, but the fact that she has been in your party for the previous 10-20 hours has given you a strong shared history, so her death then has real impact.

On a final note: whatever route the developers take towards death, the one thing I will always be against is big penalties. I don't want there to be any barriers between myself and the gameplay, and worrying about losing gear is a barrier for many people. If I die, I die, thats fine. But if I die and then lose 2 weeks of XP, fuck that. I want, at all times, to encourage all players to tackle the content. Designing mechanics that reduce the chances of players actually playing parts of your game seems counter-intuitive to me.

Theocritus

Is Hello kitty Online still around? Was there killing in that one?

iixviiiix

Pretty negative IMO. You only see "dead" but the core of it is "investment" and "risk vs reward"

Wizardry

I only wish the game studios quit calling it death and just call it KO/knocked out/unconscious.

I can't write down an entire game design here in a chat room so nearly impossible for me to explain a whole design built around a harsh KO penalty or even permanent death.

I think FFXi does the fake death/ko decently,it kinda feels like it really sucks when you die.
Every single scenario/idea i have thought about over the years that evolves around a very harsh penalty just doesn't seem to work because i nth end any player that is impacted negatively might not get invited to any groups.

vqly

cameltosis said:

Now, if we're talking perma-death of NPCs, that's a whole other ballgame. In principle, I'm in favour as this moves us closer to a virtual world feeling. However, totally depends on implementation. It becomes a real question of balancing player actions against the NPCs ability to live in the world. The NPCs need to be able to survive long enough to make an impact on the world, so that killing them permanently has any meaning.

This makes me think of how the named orcs army and deaths are implemented in the Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War games.

Those games have a very interesting Nemesis system, where the named NPCs (the orc lieutenants, captains, and generals ) would permanently die, but can be replaced by a random unnamed grunt getting promoted.  However, the one you killed do remain permanently gone for the rest of that play through. 

See:  https://www.gamesradar.com/shadow-mordor-nemesis-system-amazing-how-works/

The 2nd game even let you subdue and convert the orcs to be one of your bodyguards, and I actually did get very emotionally attached to them, to the point where one dying while fighting by my side was very upsetting.

Putting aside the "death is rare" speculation for a minute, would a system like the Nemesis system work in an mmorpg?  Not for every single npc in the game, but possibly a large number of named mobs?  It could be that it's impactful for a *single* player game, where the game revolves a single player previous actions and history, but would it work for a multiplayers settings?  If not, can it be changed to accommodate multiplayers meaningfully?

Po_gg

tzervo said:

Permadeath is not popular.

And for a reason, in an online environment you aren't always in control.

That was pretty much the bane of the few MMORPGs which tried it. When you have months invested in a character, and lose it forever due to a client crash or a connection issue, etc., you'll most likely leave instead of saying "That's fun, let's start over from scratch!"

Death penalties can be meaningful, or even harsh, but if death can occur for reasons outside of your choices/skills (which is the case with online), permanent death is not the best design.

tzervo said:

For player death narratives, the best takes I have seen are:

- EVE: you are one of many clones, when you die your clone's corpse actually floats and you wake up in another clone - some players actually collect clones or even trade clones of other famous players.

- Monster Hunter World: You don't die, you faint and get carted by your palico to the camp. Hilarious and awesome!

You don't die in LotRO either, your Morale (HP) drops down till you're defeated and flee (during the loading screen) to the nearest safe spot.

Narratively speaking, of course, in mechanics it's simple death/respawn like with Monster Hunter

FoM had a similar mechanic as EVE's capsuleers, just without the physical item, and with limits (so in a sense it was "delayed" permadeath).

Players were clones, if you died you lost your current stuff (like in EVE), but not your bank account, etc., and you were uploaded to your next clone in reserve. IF you've had any clones left, otherwise permadeath.

(You could purchase clones to refill the reserve, obviously)

Cryomatrix

Id do death in MMO's very differently. 

Each time you die, it adds to a number next to your level. 

The more you die, the higher the number. Then people can use it as a marker of skill in a sense.

Also lower deaths mean better cinematics

cameltosis

Cryomatrix said:

Id do death in MMO's very differently. 

Each time you die, it adds to a number next to your level. 

The more you die, the higher the number. Then people can use it as a marker of skill in a sense.

Also lower deaths mean better cinematics

LotRO kinda did this with their PvP for a while.

It logged all your kills and deaths, and then gave you a rating based on that ratio in a 5-star system. So, if someone had 5 stars, they'd gotten to a really high kill / death ratio in the recent weeks.

To add spice to the system, the higher your star rating, the more renown you were worth, so the enemy was incentivised to kill you. Someone with no stars was worth 100 renown, someone with 5 stars worth 200.

At some point or another, most of us PvPers would attempt to reach 5-stars. Easier on stealth and ranged classes, much harder for the rest of us! I got close on my warg (stealth), reached 4.8 a few times before being hunted down a few times in a row :-)

Wasn't really a marker of skill, more a marker of your ability to select the right fights or your ability to run away quickly! When players would start getting close, it was common for them to retreat to the safe zones whilst they waited for all their cooldowns to end. Some of those cooldowns were looooong, so you'd lose them from the fight for 30mins+.

cameltosis

tzervo said:

cameltosis said:

Wasn't really a marker of skill, more a marker of your ability to select the right fights or your ability to run away quickly! When players would start getting close, it was common for them to retreat to the safe zones whilst they waited for all their cooldowns to end. Some of those cooldowns were looooong, so you'd lose them from the fight for 30mins+.

While I see the ability to run away quickly being a balancing problem on the classes, why is selecting the right fights not a skill?

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight." 
Sun Tzu, Art of War

I keep seeing this pattern, everything not attributed to mechanical prowess is dismissed as "not a skill". Picking the right fights is skill, finding a way to cut down on grind is skill, etc. Although I can see why you could argue it's not fun (for them or their group), because it leads to waiting.

I was thinking more in terms of "skill in combat".

You are right, choosing the right fight is indeed a skill, valuable in certain situations. Certainly in situations where the outcome or consequence of failure is important, being able to avoid that is valuable.

KnightFalz

Theocritus said:

Is Hello kitty Online still around? Was there killing in that one?

Only of the innocent brain cells exposed.

AlBQuirky

City of Heroes (and later City of Villains) had an "XP Debt" bar that filled up with each defeat (not death - No one dies in CoX). It slowed down leveling process as you first had to clear out your debt bar (at 1/2 earned XP) before "normal XP" kicked in for arrests.

Many players hated it. Others made Super Groups around the mechanic, like "The Debt Collectors." I never minded the mechanic as that was around 2004-5 when video games starting having players fly though them to the end, many times with some kind of "leveling buff" implemented like sleeping at night or eating.

vqly

So we ended up talking about players death for a bit, which is good.

But let's talk about NPCs deaths for a bit too.  I was just thinking about non-engaging combats and how most are kill group of mobs easily in 1 minute or less gameplay in the current states of most games, and the constant grinds of killing the same named npc over and over for drops, prestige, and progressions.

I was thinking, would a world where deaths are rare in general, including npc enemies and lores, be more immersive and engaging?

But I guess what I am really after is... can we make combats engaging?  Would it help if it's not a fight to the deaths, but fight as a mean to subdue and incapacitate as a mean to complete the real objective (to get pass to another location, to arrest, prevent an action, for intimidation, items loot, etc).

Imagine a game where killing anything is HARD.  City of Heroes would actually be a great settings for this.  You can engage in battles, and most end result of combats is to subdue, and not kill, even when fighting goons and nameless minions.

What if we even get rid of health bars altogether?  When you engage in a battle with any enemies, you fight until you can subdue them (by knocking down their stamina, mobility, and/or consciousness)... we can have visual indicator for how close you are to achieving it with animations and audio or text cues.

Maybe the game wouldn't restrict you from dealing a killing blow once your enemy is defeated, but it is a conscious decisions, and will affect your characters in some way.  Witnesses can see you as a killer, you get shunned by "good faction" npcs, etc.

Then again, maybe being a virtual world and a game, it'll just end up being 90% murder hobos running around the game after a while.

Theocritus

Cryomatrix said:

Id do death in MMO's very differently. 

Each time you die, it adds to a number next to your level. 

The more you die, the higher the number. Then people can use it as a marker of skill in a sense.

Also lower deaths mean better cinematics

There were a couple of games that had titles if you made it to a certain level  without dying...i think EQ2 was one of them.....What players did was just play it extremely safe to get the title...kinda like the kids in South Park fighting boars to max level........

Gorwe

Theocritus said:

Cryomatrix said:

Id do death in MMO's very differently. 

Each time you die, it adds to a number next to your level. 

The more you die, the higher the number. Then people can use it as a marker of skill in a sense.

Also lower deaths mean better cinematics

There were a couple of games that had titles if you made it to a certain level  without dying...i think EQ2 was one of them.....What players did was just play it extremely safe to get the title...kinda like the kids in South Park fighting boars to max level........

Oh, Guild Wars 1 had this with its (in)famous Survivor title. I just wasn't cut out to farm boars or the like on repeat(I need real goals and progression), so I was a bozo who tried to earn this the "true way"(=by playing through the game). On one hand, I learned to pick fights, when to disengage, how to make a proper build etc. On the other hand, I also developed some unhealthy perfectionism and fixation with not dying.

I once reached Rank 2(of 3), but...tbh, I liked it. When a "one chance / character" achievment is present, it adds tension, it adds gusto to otherwise potentially boring content. Kinda like "Hardcore" in Diablo games. The change to Survivor makes sense(it now resets its progress to 0 when you "die" as opposed to locking itself off at n xp), but it also deflates the experience to me.

Po_gg

LotRO has that as well, and at start it was a real achievement (cap 50, reach 20 without a defeat). As the years have passed, cap raised, and early gameplay got easier, now it's the rare exception when someone doesn't get it automatically...

AoC added it recently (maybe a year ago) and it's a real pain in the behind. Not just due to the gameplay, but just as much hurdle is the game itself, which is old and left behind in maintenance mode.

Players even started to gather the horror/hilarious stories about how they've lost the progress due to lag, glitchy spawns, etc.

But I believe that's a different topic alltogether. When devs make an achievement of it, they tilt the focus of it to the achievement hunters/completionists.

For example, I don't like and avoid permadeath games. I still jumped in and gave not just one but two attempts for this challenge in AoC (which is technically soft permadeath, your character won't get a wipe but since the whole point of it is to reach the cap without dying, you will delete and restart anyway after the first death...), and failed both times - then gave up.

Gorwe said:

When a "one chance / character" achievment is present, it adds tension, it adds gusto to otherwise potentially boring content.

I'd debate on tension is the right word, frustration might be better for it.

But it also brings in alternate ways and bypasses of the content, players come up entirely different approaches to ensure the safest outcome. Admittedly, some of those can be interesting.

Ungood

It's taken a bit, but the smart Developers have learned that the only way to stop players from killing everything and everyone in the game, is to not let them attack it.. that is the ONLY way to stop them.

Cuddleheart

cameltosis said:

Cryomatrix said:

Id do death in MMO's very differently. 

Each time you die, it adds to a number next to your level. 

The more you die, the higher the number. Then people can use it as a marker of skill in a sense.

Also lower deaths mean better cinematics

LotRO kinda did this with their PvP for a while.

It logged all your kills and deaths, and then gave you a rating based on that ratio in a 5-star system. So, if someone had 5 stars, they'd gotten to a really high kill / death ratio in the recent weeks.

To add spice to the system, the higher your star rating, the more renown you were worth, so the enemy was incentivised to kill you. Someone with no stars was worth 100 renown, someone with 5 stars worth 200.

At some point or another, most of us PvPers would attempt to reach 5-stars. Easier on stealth and ranged classes, much harder for the rest of us! I got close on my warg (stealth), reached 4.8 a few times before being hunted down a few times in a row :-)

Wasn't really a marker of skill, more a marker of your ability to select the right fights or your ability to run away quickly! When players would start getting close, it was common for them to retreat to the safe zones whilst they waited for all their cooldowns to end. Some of those cooldowns were looooong, so you'd lose them from the fight for 30mins+.

I know it bred bad gameplay habits, but the star system was so fun!  I got to 4.5 on my Warleader before I hit a lag spike in a big group battle and never got past 4 again.  It was a fun little game within the game!  Even after they removed stars, I still played to keep my K/D high for my own enjoyment.