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WoD-MMO death penality, how would you do it?
Hokie
Member UncommonPosts: 1,063
************Changed the title* ***************
(as it seems it was confusing people because they really didnt read the thread and were commenting on the title alone)
Permadeath, most people's idea of permanent death is really just the standard version of what we all know as MMO death. True permanent death would be like someone hacking your game account and deleting all your characters and not being able to get them back. Now we all know that no one would stand for that.
So what people are asking for is just some kind of punishment for playing stupid.
Just how severe should it be, and what form should it take?
Here are some of my ideas-
• True Permanent Death: Once you die that character and everything it has is gone forever. You have to roll a new character and start at zero. You do not have access to anything your previous character had, nothing, zilch, nada. No one no matter what they say would like this to happen to them, especially if they have six months or over a year invested in that character and it happened because of a bad internet connection, or greifing, or a game bug.
Now although this type of game play would really allow the formation of a true political system, as it's in everyone's best interest for self preservation to play nicely and support each other. We all know for a fact that the Internet allows for questionable morals and integrity.
A good example is Eve online, many people claim that CCP encourages griefing but the truth is CCP allows the player to set their own moral compass and integrity. So there will be at some point where someone will take pleasure in killing someone elses character just because they can.
• A Little Mean: When you die you lose all your current inventory, and you roll a new character taking up where you left off. Now this is not and cannot be considered anything more than just changing your characters appearance. There is no penalty besides taking the time to recreate what you looked like, with the loss of just some of your items.
• Youre Punished Just A Little: When you die you have to roll a new character, but before you can take up where you left off when you died you have two reach some kind of threshold. Now depending on the game mechanics it may be something like starting out as a human then being turned. Then reaching level 10 at which time you may have the soul of your former self placed in your body, and you regain the abilities of your former self. The threshhold may be levels or a certain amount of time or a quest. It really depends on how they make the game.
• Fourth Strike- You're Out: Is a mix of permanent death and forgiveness. You have three chances to screw up in a 24 hour period before you permanently die. You die once and that starts a 24 hour countdown for your "strike", 20 minutes later you died again and that starts another 24 hour countdown on your second "strike", then 8 hours later you die once more
and that starts your last 24 hourcountdown. Meaning that if you die one more time after the third time your character is permanently deleted. Or you can wait 16 hours (15hrs 40mins) for when your "first" strike resets. I like this idea because it allows forgiveness with the threat of true permanent death if you continue to play stupid.
• Fourth Strike- You're Asleep: Just like above but after the third "strike" you go into a torpor. Now this could also be made hardcore without the punishment of permanency. If the toupor lasts for a week. Which means for the week you would not be able to play that character. I think it's a good compromise. We all know accidents happen, or we'd lose Internet connection, we're just plain bad luck. We've all had experiences where the game crashed and we died. I don't know any one who would like to lose their character permanently because of it. This one I like the best just because it still has severe punishment without losing everything. Now while your punished character is in torpor you can still play another toon.
Now I don't truly know if three strikes you're asleep would work for Werewolf or Mage or Hunter. As I don't know the lore for those three. But I'm sure Werewolves could be in a healing trance, Mages may take a week to place the former soul in a new host body, Hunters may take a week to be raised from the dead by the Messengers. It's really not that hard to make up new cannon.
Well as these are nothing but my ideas I invite you to debate them, or expand on them, or to offer some of your own.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Comments
What about 1-strike, you are locked out of your character for an 18 hour period. It would make things interesting because you would really not want to die.
I feel like with 3 strikes, no one would take any risks after 2 deaths. On the other hand, I like the idea that it locks you out in real time.
Diablerie. Your goddamn soul is eaten and consumed. No coming back from that, baby.
@ colddog, yeah its a good idea also. Just depends on how tough they make combat and how easy it is to die.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
If they do add perma death my Vampire better only be killed by Stakes and beheading.
Okay, then how would you handle being "defeated"?
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
To maybe disccuss this further. As you saying you get 1 chance to mess-up and the second time youre locked out?
Do you think that people would risk it with just 1 screw up they cant play for 18 hours, or even just after 2 screw up they cant play?
I can tell you Ive lost connection and died in many games because of Comcast. I'd hate to not be able to play for 18 hours because of it.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
There have been a few discussions on this already based on CCP talking with the public. The general consensus is that it will not happen. There is already an option for people without making it mandatory. If your toon dies, delete them.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
if you are a DK you can no longer, ever, play again...thats how I would do it.
As a dev all you would have to do is accept that fact that your okay with having like 13 subs, accept this and your all set.
Deletion has always been an option Virus. Like I posted in the top part of my post, no one would play a game where if thru a fluke your character was deleted. Only one game I know of that had a few guilds with a permadeath/character delete when you died. and that was DDO. That was so it kept it closer to old-school/core D&D play. Which I thought was totally cool.
But according to what the WoD fans said, permadeath was something they'd like to have. Personaly I think they wanted something more along the lines of harsh punsishment for being stupid and not something like a ghost run à la WoW. But who really knows what people want, hence my thread.
Just how extreme of a death penality will people truly accept?
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Death Penalties have gotten weaker over the years. They are likely to get even weaker.
I had read that list: Permadeath. Server type preference?
That was the extent of it.
There are blogs in regard to those notes talking about the general consensus that people do not want their characters ever to die permanently.
It gets complicated with WoD because of things like torpor, degeneration, aggravated damage, etc - there are many ways to lose control of your character.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I doubt that permadeath in any implementation would be embraced by the public and the overall result would be the game either fail or have to change the method.
People don't like to be punished. The penalties of yesteryear are scoffed at by the current generations. EQ1 was fun and you really had to pay attention. Now fast forward to now, the more popular methods are you come back in town with all your gear and take durability hits and sometimes an XP hit.
I will be honest with you, often times when gaming, it is not your fault. The healer fails to heal, the tank fails to tank or the DPS fails to DPS. If it IS indeed your fault, then one would need to look at what one is doing and fix that. I wouldn't want to be penalized for another's shortcomings.
If the game was PVP, and I hate PVP, then it would be unfair to have such a system where people could come in and kill your player off and you were fishing. Is it realistic? Yes. But, is it so neccisary to have such realism in a game where magic and dragons would exist? Do players play games to be sucked into another world where they face the same rules as life? I would say no again. Most games are focused on aspects of life that are rather impossible in real life. Thus, some would rather play in a world where there are less limitations than real life just to escape.
All in all, there are no acceptable methods of perma-death that I would find viable.
WinnTech
This
I seriously doubt a subscription game would appeal to folks with a perma death feature.
Sure there would be some that would enjoy it, but I see that as a one way trip to niche-ville.
Once implemented, if they change to attract customers, then they pizz off their original sub-base.
SWG, UO with Trammel/etc....once you make your bed you are stuck with it. Nothing good seems to come of wholesale changes, and to me perma-death will cause as many /ragequits as folks being corpse-camped. Just a big waste of time.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
everytime your character dies, you get a $100 charge to your credit card. You want hardcore consequences so bad? Well there you go. Shaddap already.
The mention of Permadeath didn't start with CCP, it was a question during one of their panels.
CCP isn't stupid enough to implement this. I'm all for some serious death penalties, but you'd never get more than a few people to sign up for a game with permadeath.
If you die there's a 60% chance your account is deleted (but if you roll successfully death isn't ever permanent.) I mean if we're going perma-death, we may as well cut straight to the chase with account cancellation/deletion, right?
More seriously I'd go with either CoX's XP debt (you always advance and never retreat, but if you die you advance 50% slower for a while) or early WOW death (which focuses more on not getting rewards than being punished, but if you died enough times in a row it would overwhelm your ability to generate repair money and you'd fight at 20% efficiency because your gear was all broke.)
Honestly I find instsanced dungeons to have the most enjoyable potential form of death penalty. If rewards are back-weighted (ie getting loot from a boss who's at the end) and everything resets if the party fully wipes, then that creates the perfect mix of being able to play constantly and feel like death matters (since it sets you back 1-30 minutes.) I often refer to this as the Contra- or Gradius-style of death penalty: constant fun, but death still matters.
What I dislike most are death systems that turn off your ability to play/enjoy the game (which includes things like corpse runs or any harsh death penalty.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yup, it would be nice if you could set up a system where it was tough to die, but once you did, blam, can't play till tomorrow. It might make for the most exhilarating PvP experience to date if done correctly.
I think that something along these lines could actually work...
I think that it sould revolve around blood. I mean thats like the main focus of vampires right? So say everythign is going well and your feeding and all you amass bloodpoints or somethign a kind of sdecondary currency that allows for stat boosts new skills buffs sepcial abilities ect, but when you die you loose all or a significant amount of blood therefore temporarally weakening you and forcing you to hunt and build back up to being well fed and more powerful. so if a character is extreamly carful and reachs a full blood limit then they are super powerful wreaking havoc on the battle feild almost a boss in on themselves. while a staving vampire is weak and most people will find themselves in the middle. That would be a unique mechanique that would be harsh and realistic but not overly so. More of a you meesed up so you dont get things thatn a you messed up so we take away thngs. That and maybe a full loot system where you can take guns swords ect off of fallen PvP foes.
My thoughts on this matter is that death (with a lot of sting) could PERMANENTLY remove stat points.
Die enough times and it is the equivalent of perma-death as your character is utterly worthless, but a single death wouldnt be enough to stop you from coming back and trying again.