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Why do you want a harsh DP??
MrVicchio
Member Posts: 598
Never, ever ever have I understood this.
Yeah I played EQ back in the day, I've lost levels to dying. No it wasn't fun, no it didn't add to the challenge, all it did was piss me right the ______ off.
MOST of us play MMO's for fun, not to be ticked off at the experience. I can handle a harder DP if I die because of my own idiocy, but the number of times that lag, bugs or the like (say my priest just disconnected as we started the big fight..) means for every "Dang it Vic, that was DUMB" death there are 2-3 more "@#($@(@#"; deaths.
I don't pay good money to suffer like that, and guess what kiddies, most people don't either. I wish each MMO would launch with a "Hardcore DP" server. If only to make a point about how few people would really play on one for extended periods of time.
Oh, throw in PVP induced DP of any real penalty. Guys, this isn't the days of UO and EQ, welcome to reality, people play for enjoyment, not for some artificial challenge foisted on them by people who need to prove their toughness in a video game.
Always change your signature.
Comments
I agree with your opinion.
Im not of the PvP persuasion 100%, I only dabble in that activity in any MMO I play and the PvP is a small side dish to the main course of the PvE Story.
That said when I do PvP I do it casually and although many people want a challenge, Id say ruining others gameplay by stealing their gear or adding a massive detrimental effect for dying is not a challenge but more a sadistic fantasy.
Fighting others and bettering them should be the only challenge you need, why do you want to humilate and cripple others at the same time. Obviously not everyone thinks like me and there are some that revel in such things but Im 'hoping' they arent the majority.
I can safely say that if they implemented a system like that I would not PvP. Like has been said by the OP there are other factors you have to take into consideration like lag, disconnections, or general bugs that could cause someone to die and causing penalisations in these casses would be harsh.
I think the best way to cater for these blood thirsty players would be to put them all on one server and let them nuke each other to the end of days, as for general servers leave it out is my opinion.
EQ has nothing on what most of these guys want for a DP. Most of the hardcore minority want player looting, perma- death, bla bla bla...
I remember losing levels and having to get my corpse out of the middle of Unrest... quite a few times. Its not fun. It actually sucks. But it makes you not want to die. It makes you pick good groups. And it makes you a better player.
I for one hope to see a similar type of DP given. I dont enjoy hardcore player looting or insane exp. decrease, but a nice hard smack in the face feels good every once in a while.
_____________________________
*This thread contains enough compressed stupidity to erase all science as far back as the middle ages.
Oh dear lord mentioning DP with AoC can make someone have wrong ideas.
On topic people want harsh death penalty's because they think it's hardcore instead of fluffy carebearness.
If they can fool their mind with that fine by me
All games should launch with many server choices: FFA PvP, minimal PvP, Harsh DP, minor DP, perma-death... The problem is that most likely all but 1-2 of the servers would have such low populations that they could not be self supporting. Maybe companies should have a set server profit goal [I know - most likely the amount would be set to infinity] and use a sliding scale for players - $10/month for the highly populated servers, $15 for the medium, and $50 for the 200 player max server. People could pay for the right to be uber...
<p align=center><a target=_blank href=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm><img border=0 src=http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg></a></p>;
I also wish they would launch harsher DP servers, so that I could play them.
Yep, I have been ticked off in games at unfortunate deaths, but you know what?
To me, without real risk, there isnt real triumpth.
I have played countless low/ no DP games since '99, and I have to say that I personally am bored sick and tired of the porridgy no-low-point no-high-point gameplay where everyone is a tourist, when they should be an adventurer. I am bored bored bored of feeling no fear when I enter an unexplored region, because I know I will just respawn unaffected if I die, and I am bored bored bored of feeling no anticipation before a major battle, because I know that failiure has no price.
I honestly think we, or at least the majority of us, are past the EQ1 point of constant LDs, horrendous lag, and technical glitches that you seem to be basing your opinion on... Sure, they still happen, but not really nearly often enough to base an entire game design philosophy on. I have the feeling you havent adjusted your PoV on this subject to reflect the reality of technology now, 6+ years later. Your opinion seems a little outdated tbh.
In short, I am glad you enjoy the... 'relaxation' of ez mode no DP play, but I personally want something deeper. To me, without feeling the lows, you can never experience the true highs.
I see these types of threads all the time on a lot of forums for a lot of sites and the arguments are always the same. There's the 'Why would you want a harsh Death Penalty? That makes a game less fun!' crowd, and the 'Why would you want NOT want a harsh Death Penalty? That makes the game less fun!' crowd. My response is almost always as follows:
Think back to the classic console days, for example; Super Mario Bros. Remember when you finally beat the game? You didn't do it on the 1st try, (probably,
) and you probably started over quite a few times, not just a stage re-start, but a 'from the beginning' re-start. You probably got pissed off a few times and went and did something else for a while from time to time, (or you broke controllers, and yelled at your TV, etc. 
) It's fairly likely that everyone who played the game had similar experiences, and the point is this; You knew you only got 3 chances to get it right, before you would have to go back to the beginning and do it all over again, and when you got a little further than you had the time before, you probably got excited about reaching a new level and by the challenge of making it even further. The excitement factor could easily be multiplied if you were on your last life at the time.
THAT is what a death penalty is supposed to accomplish.
Now, on the other side of that coin is good ol' 'God Mode' in Doom for example. You had no reason to do anything the way the game was supposed to be played; infinite health, armor, and ammo? Do what you want it doesn't matter. Run through the whole game w/ the Chainsaw if you want. Nothing to hold you back! Sure it's fun for a while, but you know that because there was no drawback for anything you did or for how you approached your progress through the game, when you made it to the end you probably weren't impressed.
As it applies to an MMO, the philosophies implemented today don't tend to deviate far from 'Death Penalty = Pause to collect my stuff again.' which is sad in my opinion. That generates zero desire for me to figure out what I did wrong, or try a different approach to accomplishing a task; cause it won't matter if I fail.
So, to begin to close out this already overly-lengthy post, I can't throw my hat in w/ either philosophy in good conscience because I see merits and flaws on both sides. Reward without Risk is not a reward worth gaining. Penalty without Compassion is Punishment, with no lessons learned. (There is a difference between a Penalty and a Punishment.)
As to what I subscribe to as the best death penalty? The original SWG was on the right track. Whoever came up w/ the XP penalty / level loss penalty, (I blame Gygax personally,
) was just plain mean. OG-SWG hit you where it really hurt; your stats. That always made TONS more sense to me then 'I got hurt, and forgot a lot of stuff I did...' OG-SWG you got your ass handed to you and you saw / felt it when you tried to just wade back in the the thick of things again: You got your ass handed to you again because you were just beaten within an inch of your life moron; you're hurt!
(The only point I would deviate from w/ OG-SWG would be to eventually hit the point of permanent attribute loss if injuries were ignored for a prolonged period of time.)
If you made it to the end of this; you get a 10% XP bonus for the next post you make that contributes to a conversation, instead of detracting from it.
I enjoy having a death penalty (and looting) in PVP or PVE because it makes me really "care" about the consequences of my actions.
I think in any fight it should be more like real life, you really shouldn't take a chance unless you have a reasonable expectation of winning. I despise PVP games like WOW where people thoughtlessly hurl themselves into fight after fight (like a FPS) because there's no real penalty for dying.
Which is why I guess I play EVE, because if I screw up in either PVE or PVE, it will cost me. Just the other night I got careless in a PVE mission and suddenly saw my shields and then armor rapidly stripped away by a horde of NPC's.
I quickly targeted a nearby system and pleaded with my Battleship to hurry up and warp. I was 1/2 into structure (almost dead) when I finally made it out.
Its the rush you experience in moments like that which are totally missing from a game with no penalties.
OK, so not everyone needs that sort of excitement, but I do.
Whenever there is a FFA PVP server in a game, I always play a character on it. (normally my second) Yet, I don't like ganking, not a big fan of PVP actually. So why am I there? Because it adds to the challenge tremendously to accomplish the PVE objectives when someone is always trying stomp you in the process.
Also, if anyone makes you mad, or is camping your mobs, you just flatten them. It just adds so much more depth to the game play, other wise its just another boring cruise through mobs you can't lose to.
Look at LotRO. Some folks get so bored with it they actually do their best to obtain the "Undying" Title by playing the game totally safe in order to reach certain levels w/o a death. That has zero appeal to me, I can't even imagine wanting to play a game that way. Me, I try to pull 4 mobs 3 levels above me just to see if I can survive the fight just to remain interested.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Personally I don't care either way. If the gameplay is immersive enough I'll stick around. Perhaps the gameplay will need to be a notch or two better for me to tip the balance towards playing instead of leaving.
Harsh penalties doesn't make a good game. It can however enhance the experience if the gameplay is solid. In other words, if the gameplay is junk, no amount of self punishment will keep people interested. While a great gameplay can make people that normally would not tolerate the extra pain to endure it.
Because they want adrenaline and this particular brand of S&M mentality only gets that from the threat of pain (or causing pain).
They will says its about meaning or challenge. But that is all crap its about an adrenaline rush.
I once read a famous article on mm o's - the author suggested that the only kind of death should be 'permadeath' anything else is silly, however this would be quite obviously really terrible for the share holders/$ which companies like FC need to have to exist. I believe there should be at least some drawback to dying such as being removed from the combat zone (which in itself can end the nights gaming), reduction in item wear (as in LOTRO) etc...these are minor 'tweaks' that the game devs would experiment with to get right based on the actual game mechanics basically.
I have to say that some of my favorite gaming experiences were in Asherons Call retrieving important items off corpses from dungeons or some banderling infested hell hole after I'd stupidly stumbled into a portal that I had no business entering..
I might be in the minority here, but I don't consider anything I have done playing a video game to be an accomplishment.
Excellent post.
Significant death penalties do make the game more challenging because it is an obstacle to avoid and thus overcome, which requires more planning and consideration of actions instead of just rushing into situations. As said eloquently by Onitora, the risk of death increases overall excitement and the reward of success intensifies because of the risk of death.
A significant death penalty should also allow a gap to develop between players that die often and players that die less. This gap can be witnessed by all players and represented by gain of levels, gain of items, gain of knowledge, etc. This is an important aspect of a multiplayer game, the ability for some players to surpass other players competitively.
Now you could implement a system where you significantly reward players who die less without having to penalize players who die often, which would accomplish the competitive aspect, but this still would not satisfy the intensity and excitement that avoiding a significant death penalty provides.
You want perma-death in a game, easy just delete your toon when you die. Want to lose your items when you die, easy just destroy all your items when you die. If you want to lose exp when you die, easy just spend 2-20 hours killing no exp mobs. Any game can have harsh DP, all it takes is commitment on your part. Why make a game hit you on the head when you can do it to yourself.
ROFL! I totally ffriggan agree with the OP! I remember those days and truthfully, if that was the case I would never even bother to take another look at this game. I remember body runs, and losing levels, and throwing my keyboard across the room shattering it in to a few hundred pieces...
I always see one of these idiotic posts in these types of discussions.
There is a competitive aspect in multiplayer games and there is no point in competing unless everyone has the same ruleset.
What Funcom should do is offer a hardcore ruleset server with a significant death penalty. That way players can choose the ruleset they want and everyone will be happy.
And i disagree with you. As a casual, and some would say carebear, player i never thought the death penalties in EQ were harsh.
I can only remember losing level once or maybe twice. Did it suck, sure did, but i learned from it and made sure i had a good exp buffer after leveling before i went after something truely dangerous. Of course this cant happen in the middle of a dungeon but you live with it. Did i die by trains caused by other people, yep, but i never got mad about it (at least not really mad), that was what the game had so that is what you dealt with.
I really cant remember dying all that often in EQ and when i did it was usually because i did something wrong. There is always death by lag but in most cases you didnt have to do much extra killin to get the exp back. Dying in 30 or any other hell level was something you wanted to avoid but in the other levels it didnt take much effort to get the exp back. And i only remember one time where i had a lot of trouble getting my body back, but i still got it back within the same play session.
A real death penalty adds something to a game, and im not talking about just beating your chest. If there was a zone/Area in EQ that was many levels higher then me i didnt go in that zone. And if i had to then it actually made me nervous and sweat. I had actual fear. In WoW it didnt matter what level the zone was, I ran into a level 50 zone with my level 20 Hunter because i wanted to see what the mobs looked like. I had no fear of dying because i didnt care if i died, i lost nothing (a rez penalty and a small armor hit is NOTHING). That takes the excitement out of the game. There were areas in EQ that i wanted to get into so bad that it made me play the game more and better so that i could get to them faster, in WoW i just went to them, looked around, maybe died, maybe ran through without getting hit.
And guess what Kiddies, there are many others who like this aspect as much as me. This game is not going to give it to us but hopefully a game will again.
Nobody says that you have to play a game with a harsher DP then you like. I dont like hardcore PVP so i dont play hardcore PVP games, but there should still be hardcore PVP games. MMORPGS should not all be built for the masses, there is no reason why games cant be built with the smaller (perhaps niche) groups in mind.
You want easy no death penalty games, you have WoW, EQ2, LoTRs, TR, PoTBS, Current EQ, COH/V, sadly Vanguard, etc etc.
You want a game with a harsher DP you have FFXI and maybe UO. Both of which are quite old and have decreased population due to age. Actually you also have Eve which is a popular niche game.
Hardcore PVP lovers may get Darkfall someday, PVEers who like it a little more rough have nothing on the horizon that i know about.
Then you really don't want a hardcore game. If you want bragging rights, write it in your bio for any one who cares can read. If you want others to play like you make some friends and set up your own rules and play by them. You want perma-death, join the army, best rush of all.
are you real? like a real person?
my dad hates video games and if he hits a few buttons and kills somebody...he'd consider that an accomplishment.
i have no idea what games you are playing, even pong after a certain number of hits would probably be an accomplishment.
your statement was overly smug because if you have played any video game at all for more then an hour then your obviously interested enough to progess and accomplish something.
Well I'm a long time PvE player and I really like a death penalty...
I remember the earliest game I played, a game called underlight. It was a heavy role playing pvp game. You didn't really have much in the way of equipment and when you died you collapsed into a soul sphere and dropped an item. You would have to run back to the central area for your avatar to reappear. There wasn't any real penalty for dying. Dying didn't really matter if you died a dozen times it was no biggy just a bother that you had to run back.
Then I played the UO beta. In it you could be killed by players and your stuff looted. I was thrilled to get into beta. I logged into the game for the first time and was dead in like 30 seconds. So I made a new character and again was dead in a few sec. After about an hour of this I realized that players were camping the starting location and killing all new players before they could do anything. It sucked I logged out and deleted and never liked pvp again.
Then I got into the eq beta. Now this was cool. I was in a real world. I made a barbarian rogue and ran around town and eventually found a raft crossing the water. On the trip I was a little excited and fell off the boat. I had no idea that you could swim, it was night and I coudlnt see and I didn't know how to control my character looking up and down. I drowned that day... I lost all my meager belongings. I asked someone what to do and they said my stuff is on my corpse. ok where is my corpse, they said you drowned you need ot look for it. So I learned how to swim and I waited till day. I dove in and started looking for my corpse. I found the ugly thing at the lowest spot in the bloody lake. I had to swim down, grab a couple items, swim up breath then back down. Finally I got my stuff back and you know what I was elated. Death had a meaning. This was the beginning of a long marrage with death
. Next a leopard killed me. I lost some xp and carefully got my body. I eventually learned to be careful and not die. Although I did learn to fear death. I remember I was lvl 10 maybe and I was out in the everfrost tundra looking around when I found a castle. I snuck in and found these huge ice giants. I didn't come near them but was like OMG this is cool as my heart was litterally pounding in fear. I went in the castle down the passage and snuck by another giant. Then suddenly I zoned. Now I was in a cave like area. There were a couple ice goblins ahead of me. I'd killed many ice goblins and while these looked a bit different I figured what the hell and attacked them. I quickly realized these were not good goblins and were going to kill me. I was a bit disoriented and started to run. After a short run I was killed and died.
I was back in halas and went to the bank and got my 10 silver I'd been clever enough to put in the bank. I had nothing. I was sad. I took my 10s and bought a fishing pole and some bait and a few beers and went and sat at the dock fishing. I was determined to fish my way back into business. Occasionally other players would wander by and wait for the raft. I'd say hi, let me tell you about a tale of woe and great adventure. I'd tell them my story and some would donate some money to my recovery. Now being as this was beta there unfortunately weren't any higher lvl people around and anyone that knew anything about permafrost. But eventually someone after hearing my story said why don't you get a couple people together and go get your corpse. I sat there stunned as it never occured to me to ask for help... So I said that would be a great idea and with my new partner and my rusty sword we set about gathering some more brave souls. Well the long and the short of it was that we gathered a group and snuck past the giants into permafrost. With the help of my group we were able to vanquish the nasty goblins and get my corpse back. I can not describe the feelings of elation and victory. Nore can I express how I bonded with these people that helped me. I stayed in contact with these people for 6-7 years. Without a death penalty none of this would have happened.
In eq you always feared death. When you were sneaking through a zone trying to avoid mobs your heart was pounding you knew you could die at any time loosing your equipment and experience. When you succeeded there was a huge sense of satisfaction. I learned in eq many valuable lessons.
1. Death hurts
2. Ask for help!
3. Never blindly run when you are in shit
4. Always know where you die
5. Make friends with a bard or necro :P
Now one more story...
I played in eq2 the day the game launched. I was in one of the adventure zones off qeynos. Being a seasoned eq vet the death penalty in eq2 was rather meaningless in that you had to get your shard and till you did you were a little weaker, and each shard you dropped weakened you more. So I'm in this castle ruin area a bit further back where you deal with your first challenging mobs and there is this wizard that I see go running past me and up some stairs right into the mobs. I think hmm thats odd. A few minutes later she goes running back up. And a few minutes more once more. After she ran up like 5-6 times I sent her a tell and asked what she was doing? She said she died and was trying to get her shards. Being kinda amused at her apparent lack of any intelligence at all I asked he how that was working out for her... She at this point became rather cross with me and said she just kept dying. I asked her if she had considered that her strategy for getting her corpse might not be very effective after I noticed she had like 5-6 shards up there. So she asked well what the hell was she supposed to do. I said, rule number two in an MMO is to ask for help. She said she didn't know anyone. I asked if she knew about /ooc which she did.. In any event I got the few people I had in my group to invite her and we helped her get all her shards.
I'd guess that she learned a lot that day.
In retrospec I'd never trade my time playing eq with death penalties for a game without one. It makes the game far more satisfying and really makes you excited and fearful.
I guess it's what they say, there is no ying without yang, no light without dark, no good without evil. In other words without death there is no contrast in the game and it all becomes gray. Death with a penalty creates a contrast and makes the world far more engaging. You aren't walking by a lizardman that might reset you to the start of the zone. You are walking by a god damn evil lizardman that killed you yesterday and you hate with all your heart. How many ex eq players know who dvinn is and how many of you killed him a dozen times just for spite!! Hell I even killed Fippy every time I saw that black hearted bastard.
Name me any game where you actually cared about killing an NPC at all!?
So why do some people like death? Because it makes life worth living.. Is dying fun? NO but then again it isn't supposed to be. Is living fun when you know you can die, Yes it is amazingly fun and thrilling and exciting.
---
Ethion
Because its bad for a soul to be always carebear ?
Exactly. This is what MMO players seem to forget.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Because not having a death penalty sucks.
stupid actions should require consequences.
this is supposed to be billed as an adult game.
and adults don't cry about death penalities.
For a lot of games right now, a death penalty is the corpse run and, in instances and such, that means you often have to redo certain material so that's not quite negligible.
But for PvP in such games, I don't like the fact that if someone wants to be a jerk and he is near a spawn point I can't do more than slow him down for a few minutes. On the other hand, in such PvP games where there is a DP, it is often the jerks that feel compelled to take their high level characters into low level areas and do as much damage as possible until high levels show up to defend.
Losing levels?! fuck that, thats just a greedy ploy to keep you playing, and we don't want the DP to be harsh to make your life hell, please we want it to make the game live up to it's theme, harsh, dark and gritty... brutal!
It can't be easy, you cant run into a camp of Picts loot a chest for ur quest item and run out without risking something, i don't want it to be "oh well if i die i just corpse run and try do it properly, or not at all" I hate that, plus it will help with farmer's and if you don't like it you can always go play on the PvE server... so hey don't hate so much. All i'm asking for is Item loot, just 1 random item, could be a potion or it could be your newly polished Dragon Helm 3000x whatever, just so there is incentive for PVP and a deternt for stupidity.
So please be more open minded and this goes both ways for you so called 'care-bears' and us so called 'hard-core pvpers'
Why do people want a DP its simple. We cant impact the world without a DP.
Think about PVP where lowbies are adventuring and doing quests. Along comes a high level and kills them all. Because there is no DP, he just sits there and kills them ALL DAY long. The newbies scream and some anti-PKs arrive to deal with the griefer. After about 10 minutes they notice he not returning so they leave.
The griefer decloaks (he's a rogue), and renews his killing spree with new ZEAL!
Now Imagine Age of Conan with a DP:
Same scenario. The veteran is torturing the newbies, killing every lowbie in sight. Along comes the anti-PKs. They kill the high level and guess what- because the high level was a GRIEFer all his loot is now player lootable. The anti-PKs can now pick through all his loot.
You think that guy will be back? Most likely not.
Because there is no consequences for actions we see rampant griefing.
It's easy, we want a harsh DP because that is the only way to get impact