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Death penalties in mmorpgs: Are they becoming less punishing?
RamenThief7
Member Posts: 362
In most cases, no one likes dying in their game. Whether it's having to run back to your corspe as a ghost, losing stuff, losing exp., or having to start back at your homebase, it's never fun to get wasted. However, what happens when you take the punishing aspects away from dying in a game? I shall present three different levels of punishment, and who would like them or not.
1. Light punishment.
You don't lose much (if anything at all), so when you die, don't worry, you won't drop that +5 sword. Mostly, casuals flock to these games like flies to a light source. This type of dealth penalty in a game gives a sense of more comfort rather than fear of being ambushed, thus the less hardcore gamer would appreciate this setting.
Pros: You're at more ease when playing.
Cons: Sure, you'll avoid getting wasted next time, but some people just like the thought that they have to be on their guard 24/7 to make sure that thief doesn't steal from them. It's not paranoia, it just brings thrill to the game. If you could easily lolligag through the game, well, where's the challenge in that?
2. Regular punishment
You lose some things when you die. This is a striking balance of punishment between light and severe, which can appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers.
Pros: It appeals to a wider variety of gamers.
Cons: It's not light enough for people that like the light death punishment, and it's not punishing enough for hardcores.
3. Rogue-like punishment.
A long time ago, a game existed called Rogue. This game brought an interesting concept which was not seen at its time. When you died, the death penalties were severe. You lost everything you were holding at the time, lost all your exp. you had gained fighting in the dungeon, and had to start back at the homebase. It was a death penalty designed to make you cry. Rogue-likes are games based on that concept and are turnbase-strategy based, but nowadays any game with this type of strict death penalty can owe its' thanks to Rogue, the first of its kind. It takes serious bravado (or a self-abusive personality) to play and love this kind of punishment in a game.
Pros: Like I said earlier, masochistic and self-abusive gamers will appeal to this.
Cons: Everyone else will definitely shy away from this type of punishment. Also, if there isn't any level restrictions in pvp, then high levels will usually rule the game by killing off everyone else and stealing whatever drops, which scares newbies from wanting to play the game.
In my opinion, there are way too many games out there with the light death punishment type. It does attract casuals, but what ever happened to strict death punishments? What are your thoughts?
Comments
Nice layout on punishment options, but this is more like a statement than a debate.
Hellgate London had a hardcore mode, Aion has some XP loss on death, but in general of course the majority of players get fed up with rouge systems. MMOs are catering to a much larger audiance these days and jumping the newcommers into rogue is asking for a game wipe.
youtube.com/gcidogmeat
What happened to the mix of things? In EVE Online, in the starter areas, or Empire space, you can pretty well fly without fear of being shot down by pirates or other PvPers. As you progress into Low Security space, the yields for income increase, but this is considered pirate haven, and you should be on your guard. In 0.0, or Lawless space, there are no rules, simply war. It's a different beast here, because if you're in a powerful corporation, you can live relatively peacefully, taking up the call to arms when your territory comes under attack, but these peaceful times are few and far between. Usually it's moving around quite frequently as the balance of power shifts. NOT for the casual player.
Of course, you can go to any area you want at any time, but the death penalty is the same everywhere -- you LOSE your ship, and everything in/on it. You can insure your ship to get some of that money back, but you DO lose things, and it could be quite bothersome to get things back. To help new players and experienced players alike with the blows of losing everything, most corporations/alliances/coalitions have a ship replacement plan -- as in if you lose a ship during a PvP operation supporting them, they will replace it at no cost to you, and you can use the money you gained from insurance to refit it with weapons/ammo/etc.
That seems to make a lot of sense to me, really, but there's another thing to EVE. Almost everything in EVE that is advanced (to make comparison brutally simple, an epic in another game) is built by players. So it's not necessarily easily replaced, but much easier than, say, if I raided for 2 months to get those derned epic boots, and I get killed on the way out and lose it, I bet I'll feel pretty bad!
So, I would say it depends on where you get your equipment, from player crafting or from raiding, and also on if there are safe areas in the game for those who weren't fully interested in the PvP aspect of the game.
"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
Simone Weil
My opinion? Game developers are too afraid to implement anything that causes a significant setback for the player. They want to coddle the player, make them feel like a "winner" all the time. You see the same thing happening in (American)society today with things like little league baseball and football. Everyone gets a trophy and is a "winner". Noone "loses" anymore when they are growing up, and consequently they cry and moan when introduced to the fact they you will lose sometimes when you are older. Well, game companies have decided to continue the "everyone's a winner, let's walk on eggshells" design mentality.
Funny thing is people lose at board games, people lose at card games, yet they still continue to play. There are plenty of games out there that take a time investment in which you can lose it all and have to start over. Yet, people still continue to play. They just have to play more cautiously, and think about their moves. I guess it's like the difference between checkers and chess, though. I't be nice to have more "chess-like" MMOs out there, for sure.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
90% of people play games, including MMORPG's as games. As fun, entertaining things to do to waste time after school / work.
To those 90% of people, just the fact that you died is punishment enough. Unless you can re-spawn exactly where you just died without losing anything, which no game really does, not even WoW, then even the simplist of death penalties like a ghost run is enough to discourage death.
Ever die multiple times trying to do something / get to something in WoW? It happens. It's a lot more rare now then it was in the Classic days, but dying even with no penalty over and over does start to piss you off.
It's like in a FPS game you die what happens? You respawn. That's it.
Your team may lose a point, the other team may gain one, it has no effect on your character. It still sucks. Mostly you will lose whatever additional weapons you were carrying compared to the starting kit for that map. For most, that is punishment enough.
Dying in any game sucks, even if there is no penalty like in an offline single player game where you just reload the last save and try again.
I've played through plenty of games where I have never died, like Mass Effect or something, and it is still very enjoyable.
I've also been playing MMOs since UO so I fully understand full loot PKing and such. It was a lot of fun too.
The thing is, in UO there was no gear or equipment that really mattered. Even if you were looted clean it didn't really matter because everything was so easy to come by you just went to the bank after rezzing and got a new set of gear and such.
The reason you don't see heavy death penalty games is because companies like to actually make money and games cost way too much money to make these days to take such a retarded risk and actually plan on succeeding.
If you do EVERYTHING else right, if you are lucky you will make enough money to recoup your development expenses and turn a profit.
If you make a bad game with these harsh penalties, why the fuck would anyone play it?
I think we need punishment when we die. The more severe the punishment the more exciting the game is for me and im not a very good PVP'er but its the only one that i will play because i enjoy that kind of thrill. The difference would be like getting in a car and sitting versus getting in a car and driving.
Damn you NetHack
I don't think the current style of games would do well with a harsh death penalty. With the large scale raiding in a lot of these newer games, dieing is not always your own fault. I do not mind losing stuff when I die, but I do hate dieing because of someone else not doing their job. If a game is to have severe penalties I think it needs to be more solo and small group friendly. Also I feel like this is more suited for sandbox mmo's, which we need more of (/pokes dev's)
This debate could go on and on. I don't see this trend of light punishment going away anytime soon.
That sounds very much like gambling to me. It does not actually make the fight any more challenging but simply causes a bigger adreline reaction. Not being an adreline junkie I prefer my gfights to be challenging and sever death penalties do not actually add to the challenge or help overcome it.
The other problem with severe death penalties is they arbitrary nature. If my character dies because I did something stupid, I deserve a penalty to indicate that it was my fault. However, if I die to lag, a bug in the game or simply due to bad luck I still get punished the same. It's a very injust system.
Death in an RPG should act as an roadbloack. If you die you cannot progress. You have to go back and redo the fight over and make sure that you learned from your mistake. If you did not learn, you will die again and have to start again. Being deinied further progress in the game seems like quite a sever penalty for failure.
Cool, so many replies in such a little while.
First off, don't think instantly that I'm saying that there should be more rogue-likes, I'm just saying that nowadays I personally believe that death penalties are becoming less and less, well, punishing.
There is a game out there that sort of implemented the rogue punishment idea, but it's well balanced. And you know what game that is?
...Runescape.
You see, in that game, dying isn't fun. You lose everything you were holding except the weapon you had equipped, and you start back at homebase. But you don't lose exp., and it's notable that there is only a certain area where you can attack other people. So in this case, the death penalty is very punishing, but there are safety elements involved. This concept has attracted both hardcores and casuals to the game. That is the kind of difficulty I personally like. One that will make you suffer when you die, but it's possible to rebuild yourself again, and there are areas you can be in where you're not target by others if you wanted to take a breather.
I'm not advertising for everyone to play the game, but notice how balanced that system of punishment worked? A simple one to punish people for sucking, but one that did have some safety elements attached.
If a rogue-like had unrestricted pvp, it's going to die. A rogue-like does need a few safety elements for it to thrive, but keep in mind that "few" is the key word here.
Damn you NetHack
I don't think the current style of games would do well with a harsh death penalty. With the large scale raiding in a lot of these newer games, dieing is not always your own fault. I do not mind losing stuff when I die, but I do hate dieing because of someone else not doing their job. If a game is to have severe penalties I think it needs to be more solo and small group friendly. Also I feel like this is more suited for sandbox mmo's, which we need more of (/pokes dev's)
This debate could go on and on. I don't see this trend of light punishment going away anytime soon.
Dofus has an permadeath server and it works perfectly and that game is anything but a sandbox mmo, you just need to do some tweaking like more exp gain and easier to acquire gear to make it work. But like you said so very good: "which we need more of (/pokes dev's)"! /poke /poke /poke! We need more!
I'm so glad that this genre is moving slowly but surely away from the hardcore mentality. You guys are very much in the minority and I'm not sad to see your "methods" of fun going extinct in casual games, although there is still too much integration of both in current games. They don't belong together, each is detrimental to the other and the overall health of the game. Make hardcore games, make casaul games and stop trying to cater to both, it creates resentment on both sides.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
The answer to the thread title is, "duh....of course they have".
Few games today have anything like the early MMORPG's had.
Full loot, corpse runs, exp loss etc have almost become a thing of the past.
IMO, EVE has it balanced the best, with combination of hardcore PVP zones (0.0) and mostly (not entirely) safe empire zones for those who want to minimize their risk.
You'll find many folks who totally disagree with me and say EVE 's too harsh, they prefer minimal to no death penalties.
Just a matter of taste, and history has clearly shown most gamers prefer not to be punished for dying in a game.
"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
I just don't understand why more games don't go with the "different ruleset" option.
Even UO had the "hardcore" server Seige Perilous back in the day.
Now MMOs only have PvP or PvE servers, if that! Some only make a distinction between Role Play and normal or only distinguish servers by location/language.
How hard is it to make a hardcore server for all the masocists?
Seems like some pretty simple tweaks is all you'd need, very easy code. If it's a little imbalanced, so what! It's suppose to be hardcore and challenging.
1. 10% increase monster/mob HP and damage.
2. 10% less XP and gold per kill / quest / mission
3. 10% more repair / travel / training costs
4. 10% experience loss/debt on death
I mean those are just examples.. but seriously how hard would it be to create one server with a different rule set that was more hardcore?
UO did it and that was the first MMO! That was like 12 years ago too. Siege Perilous was awesome.
And if it's popular enough to warrant having more then one server, guess what, use the revenue from the first servers subscriptions to open a second one! etc.
It's no different then having a PvE/PvP server split.
More options > less options.
More options = more subscribers = more fun cause you can tailor the game to your tastes through server type selection
WoW now has graveyards everywhere so now even the corpse run isn't a big deal. I'd like to see a game where you get XP loss, not all, just what you gained since you last leveled and some equipment permanent durabilty loss, for example your breastplate has 100/100 durabilty, you die and lose 25% repairable durability and 1% perm durabilty so when you rez you have 75/99 so after 100 deaths your breastplate is toast. That way you could encourage crafting and hopefully a better player economy also.
Vrazule: Well boyo, the problem is us masochistic gamers want stricter punishments back. Whenever I play a console game, I never choose the easy option (unless it's like the case of the Ninja Gaiden Sigma series on the PS3, in which case yes I will choose the normal difficulty first before the hard one). When punishments simply aren't punishing enough, they just take away the challenge. Yes, I know that in FPS dying over and over again but technically losing nothing yourself (except your pride) breaks away from the rogue-like idea, but that's because we're talking about FPS, not mmorpgs (fps/mmorpgs are debatable). So with the whole easier "everyone wins" idea, I simply believe it's making mmmorpgs less challenging, less thrilling, and less fun.
Think of it this way. When you have a dog (real life), how do you train it? Will you lightly say "no" at the dog when it pees continuously on the carpet, or do you firmly (but not overly harsh) punish it with a newspaper smack? Punishment trains people and animals alike to not repeat bad actions. So if you're a warrior, and a wizard continuously pwns you, perhaps it would be best to start looking for mag. resistant equipment? (P.S.: I do not condone harsh treatment against pets, I'm simply stating that to train a dog you have to discipline it, and teach it the rules).
Kyrulean (well, person with kitty icon that says wtf): I know that the answer to my question is yes, I just stated that to get more people to debate on this thread. Notably, you came on this thread and posted about it, so my question that draws people to this thread is working.
UO is a very special case. They were more interested in pleasing their customers than ripping them off for immediate profit. They took the long view is most of their updates.
Making different rulesets has never been about the difficulty to implement it, but rather about maximizing profit. It's all bout the the short term profitability. You cut costs no matter what, even though putting more effort into it will net you more profits in the long term. If there is no immediate payoff then good luck getting these greedy bastages to care.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Yes they are I remember Lineage 2 like it was yesterday.
If you die at level 80 you hade to grind for 8 hours to get your exp back, even if you got pvp:ed. And also you always had a chance to lose gear back in the days if you died, or items in inventory.
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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Heerobya: Excellent idea! Why not have hardcore rogue-like servers and lighter punishment servers?
mbd: You too have an excellent idea posed! This would spruce up the economy of the game if your equipment kept getting wrecked. This way, those high levels with their +8 multiple enhancement equipment can't stay that way forever. It would force continual investment in the game's economy as well as make crafting in the game all the more necessary.
Personally, I have had my eye of EVE Online for a while. If done correctly, mixing different types of death punishments and recovery in a game can be successful. Perhaps I'll join EVE Online soon if for that reason alone (though the idea of being a space pirate is also cool).
I just don't understand how it wouldn't be profitable to do something so easy to increase your player base.
Because if it doesn't work out, you can just flip that server over to another PvE or standard PvP etc. etc. server and you didn't lose anyhing.
Is it really fear of trying something new?
Is it really the "if it aint broke don't fix it" mentality taken to a whole new level?
Am I the only one who sees how logical and profitable it would be to put these kind of options out there for people to test and if it works and gets good feedback to go through with it?
I mean look at the big industry king, they put all their new stuff in betas and on the test realms weeks/months in advance to figure out exactly what people like and don't like before the push it out to the rest of their population.
Why not do the same thing with new server types? Put it out there as a test, if it works push it out if it doesn't then change it.
I personally like the loss of stuff when you die, sure I'm a hardcore gamer and miss the old games. These days too many MMO's make pathertic games for pussies.
I'm just waiting for a decent game with perma death or more harsh death penalties. It will happen, just like some day they'll be a better MMO available than the current attempts.
Just takes something different and people will accept it for what it is. But then again look in the news and every kid out there thinks he's a god or some lame excuse for one!
Though I don't feel the same nor do I agree with you I do respect your opinion and ESPECIALLY how you present it.
No bull, no trolling or flaming.
Just straight up "this is me, this is what I want" and if you don't like it, too bad because I don't like what you like.
Not enough of that on these boards, too many people have to be right and everyone else wrong. It's sad really.
Like me, I know I'm better then everyone so why not flaunt it?
I agree with Heerobya. It wouldn't hurt for developers to at least try new ideas in betas, and see whether or not the gamers like it.
Edit Part: I agree with Heerobya on his thought that developers should take more chances on new ideas, that's what I mean for anyone confused.
Eve-Online. You die, you lose pretty much everything (particularly if you are ina good ship with a good fitting. That 'everything' can represent your whole net worth, and will usually represent a sizeable chunk
Eve-Online. You die, you lose pretty much everything (particularly if you are ina good ship with a good fitting. That 'everything' can represent your whole net worth, and will usually represent a sizeable chunk
If there was any one who knows more about dying its most definatly Lallante!! he has lost more ships than any one in Curse Alliance!!! thats right Lallante I am exposing you!!! YOU HOOKER!!!!
I think the problem here is that the two groups will never meet - those who like harsh death penalties and those who think there should be none at all. Neither side is ever going to convince the other that they are "right".
This keeps coming back up because the "casuals" who like lighter or no death penalties are the majority of *potential* customers, thus all the major MMO studios have catered more and more to that crowd ever since WoW. (Not a slam on WoW, just a statement of fact, it was the first major title to reduce the death penalty to nearly nothing - coming to WoW from EQ or DAoC was like, wtf? this is nothing, heck I'll suicide just to cross the zone faster!)
This ties in with the idea that MMOs are not being made for "gamers" anymore - and lets face it, they aren't. They want more audience, they want the console jockeys and all the casuals who don't otherwise play a lot.
This leaves those of us who would prefer more "hardcore" games with a higher difficulty level and harsher death penalties stuck dealing with imbeciles like the Darkfall crew (and games which may be hardcore, but are barely playable games at all). Hence all the complaining