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How do you feel about the concept of semi hardcore death?
zethcarn
Member UncommonPosts: 1,558
By that I mean when your character dies it is unplayable (or recieves -75% stat reduction) for X amount of time. Each time you die the debuff timer gets a little longer until you can go 1 month or so without dying, then the debuff timer is reset. I think it would make players think before they act and it would definetely add a greater sense of danger.
Comments
I think it would be cool if upon death, your character was physically erased from existence, with a laser beam cutting out the sectors on the server that stored your char's data, creating a final, unrecoverable hole.
Nope, not a viable idea, interesting, sure, in theory, but not suitable for a MMO, would scare off 99% of the playerbase. Especially if there is open world PvP in the game. Nothing more "fun" than being ganked by 6 thieves in stealth upon exiting the city, each time you make a new character ^^ Yes such things do happen in games with open world PvP (*looks at EQ2*).
What if you die because of a lag spike or because power was shut down?
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
This sounds like a playtime killer, which is a terrible idea for any game and for an MMO especially. The start-over model of proper HC modes actually is less punishing and makes more sense than preventing the player from being able to play.
Agreed. If the character was simply locked in place and all abilities/skills disabled for 10 minutes after death it would be less annoying than the OP's suggestion.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The entitlement mentality has definitely bled into the younger mmo generation though I'm afraid.
It would be really nice if you actually used proper arguments instead of trying to use some rehashed and stupid statement that has never actually been proven such as "entitlment generation" or "casual gamers" or "carebears" or "CoD gamers"or whatever else you can "think of".
"People are entitlted" is not an argument or statement. It doesn't mean squat and doesn't supply any information, because it's SUBJECTIVE. 100% subjective. And subjective is useless. We're discussing video games.
The purpose of a death punishing mechanic is to make a game fun. That's IT. If a mechanic doesn't make a game fun for someone, then it doesn't. There's nothing entitled about not finding something fun, because this is a video game. And how much fun people get out of various time wasting punishing mechanics seems directly proportional to how much free time these people have to waste on these mechanics.
If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have probably liked the idea. As it is right now, I wouldn't play it at all. My gaming time is more limited because of work, family and going back to college, so I wouldn't want it to find myself in a position where I have some free time but can't play because of the death penalty. Also, I lost count the number of times I've died in an MMO because I'm playing late at night, and have to leave it there in the middle of a fight and run to the other room because the baby woke up crying.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
WoW has already a similar mechanic for death, but is optional for players who want to revive quickly, is a 10 min effect which lowers your stats to 75%.
semihardcore sounds interesting, but to be honest, death stance should have some sort of entertainment too, i mean, you die, you revive, in some games you keep as a ghost i guess, but only if you want to get to your corpse and revive by yourself, i think it would be funny to stay in ghost state and do something more interesting.
BTW, the problem with death penalties (and other mechanics for MMOs) will always be player's opinion, everyone have its opinion and there will always be the "Carebear Idiot" and the "Hardcore Idiot" and the Troll......
Yes.
I plan on playing a D3 hardcore character eventually so this penalty suits me.
I absolutely love the way the fear of death changes the gameplay style. I am very tired of players doing stupid things and basically not having any reprocusions. In modern MMOS death penalties do not even replace the time spent making the mistake.
I understand the ruleset is not for everyone. I understand that people would quit an MMO that they repeatedly has strict death penalties on. I understand that it might be a poor business model because of the entitlement generation of players.
But such a mechanic still creates the most fun for my personal play experience. Risk vs Reward and all that.
I want to go back to "this is barely possible" challenging level design or "Insanely risky" gameplay rather then "Where do I get the most xp/loot/gold per hour and with what build" style of gameplay.
I like the idea that you are putting resources at risk every time you step out of the inn. Time is a resource, so a timeout makes sense. However, I like having control over how much I am putting at risk. I don't want to have to say "I'm feeling a little groggy tonight, better not log in". I would rather say "I'm feeling a little groggy tonight, better leave the platinum gear at home". However, if the game expects you to be playing a stable of alts rather than a single character, a timeout mechanic on the character you are playing would have a similar pick-your-risk effect.
In general, the danger with hardcore death is that once a player finds their comfort zone, they are probably not going to be dying to gameplay, but to spurious issues: bugs, network hickups, doorbells and playing-when-tired.
My favorite iteration of death penalty was in Legend of Mir as with their Player Kill system :
PK System
A Regular player is White
If you kill a White or Yellow player you becomes Yellow
If a Yellow player kills a White or Yellow player he becomes Red
Any player can kill a Red player without consequence
When a Red player dies he spawns in a Player Kill camp, Town Guards attack and kill him on sight.
Over time spent without killing players, Red detoriate back to Yellow and finally White.
Death System
When a White/Yellow player dies he has a moderate chance of dropping an item in his backpack.
When a White/Yellow player dies he has a tiny chance of dropping an equipped item.
When a player is Red he has a large chance of dropping most/all of the items in his backpack.
When a player is Red he has a small chance of dropping an equipped item.
I'm the Hero Arborea deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
Do not believe MMO can be successful with those mechanics so I would not play it, I like an MMO to be updated and not be underpopulated.
It would be a great system until the character you spent two months leveling and gearing up got pushed off the edge of a cliff by a wizard's wind blast spell or a warrior's knockback and died from falling damage. =P
I actually don't think it necessarily has to be as offensive as others believe it to be ... old school SP games had pretty punishing death systems that could render a weekend spent playing a character through a game a relative "waste of time." When you lost, you started over.
You could even implemented a "lives" system like these early games had and work it into the game's lore.
The key as alaways is really about balance.
You have to balance the amount of time and effort players invest in a character with the relative frequency of death. Unlike a game where you could spend 250 hours leveling and another 1000 acquiring the best gear, a game with hardcore death that aspires to appeal to more than a few dozen pscyho players would benefit by greatly condensing the experience of going from noob to god.
A better option that also includes perma-death is one that allows the player to retain certain trophy items from one character to the next. The character rertrieves things like a gilded sword, the head of a dragon, etc., but the player owns them, and retains them after the character is killed. What's really being lost are the skill/ability levels, gold, and useable gear, while the prestige items are retained.
In essence, the game becomes about acquiring prestige items or perks across multiple characters that usually die rather quickly. There would still be a huge benefit to the powerful players in that they would have access to the rarest of these items. A world could even be designed that encouraged players to adopt different playstyles with subsequent characters. For example, some content might require a magic-centric party, so when the player's warrior dies the next character he rolls has magic abilities so he can do different content with greater ease.
You'd have to iron out a lot of the details, obviously, but that's a loose framework for a game that could appeal to a small crowd of players. There are so many people out there that there's a market of some kind for almost everything you could imagine. The question is how big is it compared to what it would take to put it all together in a well-made package.
Keep in mind that most games with a death penalty system that have item drop on death have item grades mean much less. In Asheron's Call the difference between several weapons was very minimal and losing one to the item drop system on death was not nearly as big of a deal as losing a raid drop in item upgrade quality in systems like EQ and WoW.
The penalty has to be designed for the game and the game has to be designed with the penalty. Many players who are oppossed to gear drops as a death penalty are so used to the WoW model for loot and thus do not understand.
EvE has a system where part of weapon *gear* gets dropped and part of its destroyed. The part that is dropped is lootable by another player which can take it back to you or keep it. The death penalty fits the economic system which constantly generates items into the economy. No death penalty and the economy/crafting side would be worthless. But because of its design, the economy flourishes. An additional part of this system is that the benefits of the super expensive mods are very small in comparison to the functions of the base mods.
Realm of the Mad God illistrates this principal the best. Permanent death, max level character does not take long to get.
the core issue with all these topics is , imho , what fun means...and it looks like "fun" can mean very different things to different people
What a lot of people here see as wasted time is my fun in MMO`s
What a lot of people see as "fun" is "time wasted" in my book
For example , playing a game where i can only win (levels , gear , etc) with no way of losing, allmost like in a sports match or something , is not fun at all . I dont really care about mechanics, balance , classes and skills , if the overall game feels like a bunch of disjointed sport matches , i feel like i`m wasting my time with it
I could go and say that in the end , it`s just about sitting my ass in front of the PC and gathering pixels . Now gathering those pixels may require more or less skill/effort/game knowledge etc , but to me , if it`s just about gathering pixels , it`s a waste of time and effort .
So EXACTLY because i , too, have a life of sorts , job and all that stuff , i dont want to waste my time on things i do not find fun . Playing games with instances , no death penalty, etc , is a huge waste of time in my book. I would rather spend said time in a EvE blob , sure , i wont be clicking on stuff that much , i wont use my twitch skill that much , but when i`ll draw the line and call it a day , i will have had a lot more fun...but that`s my personal opinion
I guess i`m talking about the world vs game thing . To me , if the MMO isn`t a world , the gameplay becomes totally irrelevant , and a total waste of time . Part of making a MMO a world is having a significant death penalty , along with as much immersion as possible . Many see these things as just obstacles that lead to grind , as time sinks that get in the way of "having fun" , and i`m not blaming them , i`m just very aware that for me , without those things , the "fun" they experience is just a useless grind for me.
Some years ago i felt differently , i had all the time i needed to waste on arena style games , on gathering the next sword or the next armor or killing the next BOSS . Nowadays though , my gaming time is nowhere near what it used to be , so i find myself having to make decisions . I need to cut down on stuff i dont really enjoy , and keep on the stuff i do enjoy. In this i think we are all the same .
It`s just that I`ve gathered 10000 uber swords and reached max lvl , killed all the bosses and all that stuff in 100000 games in my 12 or so years of PC gaming . There`s nothing left for me in doing that , really . Sure , new shiny graphics and different skills to use , different classes and different uber swords , but in the end it`s just the same...click on stuff to gather more stuff untill you have all the stuff.
So if i`m going to spend time in a MMORPG , it has to be for the MMO aspect of the game , and not for the skillsystem/pvp balance/gear/loot/mobs whatever . It has to be a world . Otherwise i cant find any good reason to pick a MMO over the huge number of single player games out there
To the OP : yes i would play such a game if it would have some loot drop system associated with it , aswell as no instances
(Very) Generally speaking, the people who want the harshest death penalties in a game are those that take pride in surviving harrowing game experiences against all odds. They enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes with 'surviving the gauntlet'. Not everyone is like that, and no one wants to pay to play an avatar who is forced to stand about or otherwise wait for 10 minutes or more due to a death - certainly not a death due to the lag spikes/disconnects discussed above. It is not so much about entitlement as it is about fun. At most, I suppose, multiple successive deaths in the same area could carry some penalty. Meh.
Greystaff Legends RPG
Yes, but I would prefer the skill loss or level loss after dying idea, in this way you "never get at the higher level" and always have more stuff to do.
Your idea (the timer one) is maybe cool because make players create more chars, being able to have many main chars.
There are many, many ways to getting around the negativity of a harsh death penalty or permadeath system.
For example, if players were able to play OTHER characters while their dead ones were in time-out, prison, or permadead, it would solve the problem of players no getting to play the game when they die. (No developer wants a player to be unable to play at all upon death. That is not fun at all, because it isn't PLAYING the game.)
Faster progression would resolve a lot of problems as well. Although it would diminish the penalty of death (faster gains means less harsh of a death penalty) the death penalty would still have an impact (creating a thrill of risk v. reward). There would ALWAYS be progression and thus always be an end-game. End-game would never get tiring as the thrill of fighting high-end monsters like bosses or dragons would remain high, dangerous, extremely rewarding, and ultimately elusive given the uncommon-ness of the entire affair.
If you eliminate "end game" and "early game" and just have a game, faster progression is more about taking on challenges more readily, with less cooperation, than it is about actually being able to take on said challenges. Repetition wouldnt be a problem if there was little difference between low and high end content.
Although any PvE or PvP game would have to design much of the gameplay and progression AROUND harsher death penalties, it is not only entirely possible and viable, but could become a massive successful for everyone including the casual gamer.
In all reality, it doesn't really matter what is in your game or what features you want to design around. A good game is always a good game, and a bad one is a bad one. There can be popular WoW-killing permadeath games just as much as there can be laughable failure WoW-clone games.
Recently talked about this in another thread on a different board. I loved the death penalties of older games because it forced people to play smarter. If you didn't want to back-track and repeat the same thing you just did for the past 2 hours, you would change tactics until you learned how to move ahead. Games now are much more brute force. You can just keep bashing your head against it until the game itself changes, not you. This has encouraged people to not learn how to be good players. What's the point? It's not like you're punished for being awful in a lot of games now.
However, I think (As a means to make people think) we have moved past it. Death penalties like that are no longer acceptable in current MMOs. Let's face it, the EQ and UO generation is older now with much less time on our hands. Neither that generation or the current one would stand for such a punishment/time-sink. I don't think the idea of forcing more intelligent play should be abondoned either though. Devs just have to use the game content itself to actually force players to think to progress, instead of punishing them for failing.
No, sorry, I do not think such a mechanic can make a game fun.
I do not mind Open PvP, I do not mind Full Loss either provided it exists within a good supportive environment from the rest of the systems in the game.
But to have debuffs on stats or render the character unplayable...no this is not fun...the Idea here is to have fun first and foremost not engage in a Survival to the death Hunger Game...
Permanent Death works in games that have matches, arena or battlefields...like WoT or WWII Online/Planetside etc... but would not be fun in an MMO with an RPG with any longer term focus imo.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
i think the only way to do a hardcore death penalty is to use a tiered approach.
you have one master character that cannot be killed (immortal) and that character has a number of "Champions" which can be killed, but play just like regular characters. Your immortal character could have limited powers to bring back these "champions", and while one champion is down for the count, so to speak, another champion would fill his place.
Nope, not even remotely interested. You know why? It isn't fun (to me). Death penalties aren't fun, they simply keep you from getting back to having fun when you want to. That being said, I'd definitely support someone bringing about a game with such a system simply because there are plenty of people that would want something like that and my opinion, regardless of my personal take on it, isn't good enough to dictate how other people should play.
So no, wouldn't play it, but would wish it luck and cheer from the sidelines.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I have always wonders why some games dont have a 3 life system, die 3 times and you're done, that way we get some flexability ans still have the 'well this is it' feeling should you get down to 1 life
No, even in this situation, people would complain.
Some guys that complain here,don't liked to die PERIOD.
No permadeath or semi-pemadeath idea would make them happy, no matter how the gameplay is.
The only type of semi-pemadeath that would make those players happy is something like this:
Players start in a universe or multiverse, when your character die this guy will spawn in another universe/multiverse, this universe/multiverse is 100% like the other one (not like felluca and tramel in ultima online that are almost similar but not trully similar) but here when your char dies he will spawn in the same universe he is.
This is the only way to put semi-permadeath in the game, in a way that permadeath haters would not complain.
But this idea doenst change too much the game, because players can just die quickly and go to other world, to not need to care about this "permadeath".
In fact even with this idea some would complain if:
A)The game had full loot, I mean, many permadeath haters are also full loot haters. But what I am saying is, the permadeath haters would complain about having to lose their items to go to no-permadeath world.
B)Some players would not read about the game, would not know that the game has this semi-permadeath feature and would start to play it, and when they die would start to ask why they can find the players, monsters,... they were battilng before.. or if they were building something (if the game allows it) why they aren't finding their stuff.
It's an entertainment product, so of course people are going to act entitled towards it. Because they can. If you make a crappy game, there are thousands of other games people can play instead. They're going to make their entitlement-sounding statements and leave.
And the company making the poor entertainment product is going to go out of business.
Meanwhile until you can come up with a reason for hardcore death actually being a compelling or creating deep gameplay, it remains a poorly-justified idea.
Permadeath style mechanics only work in game with very short progression cycles like Nethack, or in games with no progression at all (but at that point it's not really permadeath)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver