Permadeath and Semi-permadeath in MMOs

learis · June 2017

Most people shudder at the thought of perma death in an mmo. Spend hundreds of hours on your character only to have it be completely erased, either by an enemy mob, an enemy person, or even a glitch. I'd like to go over some ideas on permadeath, and what in general permadeath changes about the game experience.

First, here's a couple ideas on permadeath and semi-permadeath

1) pure permadeath (when you die that's it)

2) semi permadeath:

option a (hard semi-permadeath) You start off with x lives. When you run out you permanently die. There may be quests to replenish your lives back to x amount, but never more.

option b (soft semi-permadeath) You never permanently die. But when you do die, there is a penalty for when you can resurrect (you have to wait x days, a week, etc. before you can resurrect)

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Now to discuss what permadeath/semipermadeath brings to the table. Well, imo it exponentially amplifies all of the experiences and feelings you have when playing a game, whether it be pve or pvp. The feeling of victory, the feeling of fear, excitement, curiosity, wonder... everything. In addition, it absolutely encourages social and team play when necessary.

Finally, I'm not saying that the only way to play this MMO is with permadeath. Maybe just have a server with that rule imposed. There could also be safe zones so you don't have to worry about being attacked wherever you go.

What are your thoughts about permadeath in mmos? They exist in games like Diablo where you can choose hardcore. Can they translate to mmos? Also, are there any current mmos with permadeath or semi-permadeath?

Sovrath · June 2017

learis said:

What are your thoughts about permadeath in mmos? They exist in games like Diablo where you can choose hardcore. Can they translate to mmos? Also, are there any current mmos with permadeath or semi-permadeath?

The thing is, there is a disconnect with the idea of permadeath and one's "character" when it comes to mmo's.

As soon as you say "permadeath" people think of their World of Warcraft Character or some such thing, how many month's they put into the character (or years in some games) only to lose it.

My guess is that any game that has "permadeath" would not be base around "character" but family. It wouldn't be so gear dependent.

Look at Darkest Dungeon (yes I know not an mmo[rpg]).

You can level a character only to have that character die at any time. Yet there isn't a lot of kvetching because the game is more about your roster of characters. Oh sure, you name them and they have some importance but if they die you can keep their worn items (provided the party can escape/prevail) and then level another.

But until some players understand that they aren't losing purples or that a permadeath game is NOT about the character it's going to be a hard sell.

pkpkpk · June 2017

Players died in MUD1 from 1979 and in other MUDs like it. Players ceased to die when RPGs became easier. RPGS became easier because they were costing more money to make. Thus as RPGs cost more money, death becomes a less likely feature. Thus you wish in vain for an MMORPG with death. Death had been purged from RPGs by the mid '90s. Hard drives let players save anywhere, and the makers, having spent several hundred thousand dollars on the game, did, too.

Of course players should die in MMORPGs. This would heal almost every problem that ails MMORPGs. But every MMORPG ever made, from the early days when New World Computing (then owned by 3D0) quit Might and Magic online for want of money and Everquest was almost cancelled, to the assembly lines of today, has shunned death, and thus they have spoiled their longevity and integrity. The evil end of this is an Everquest with fifteen expansion packs which resembles a stiched abomination. These games doom themselves by choice, and besides that it is very much a political or social thing when you speak of MMORPGs. Most players like the society of the game and disregard the mechanics; that is, unless they hear "your character may die", and then they run the other way. This is the archnemesis of the socializer.

An MMORPG with death must contend with this low base population and also those who do play it, who are fickle in their own way. Some who support such games, I have seen, say things like "I want to play this old game, but with better graphics." In the end, MMORPGs never have and never will be ideal. They are too expensive, and they attract and encourage certain behavior which mixes badly with the circumstances.

Cryomatrix · June 2017

Ahh hardcore.

My favorite: I am a diehard hardcore diablo 2 player who dueled/pk'd legitmately in D2, now I just play PoE in HC mode. Yes it is beyond frustrating when I lose a character to lag. But then again, I cannot really play the game in SC, as who cares at all, you can't really die.

I love permadeath, but I am not sure it can work in MMO's. In Diablo/PoE, you can exit immediately and have full rejuvination potions or some such thing. But be afraid of the one-shot kill. The one-shot and lag, the two biggest killers of HC characters.

Once, back in 2004, I tried to play WoW, like HC, i made a character and leveled him until he died, I made it to lvl 10 or 11, and died each time. In MMO's it is difficult to run away with tab targeting, the boss mechanics are way off.

What I think developers should do, is make their game. Make one server, that is HC. where you die once, it is over. Allow either special skills, potions, or abilities like instant teleport (on a timer), a few instant heals (potions), and such. But I'm not sure you can change each server that much in terms of availability.

or, have it like any other MMO, and have your character have a special halo that goes away on first death, so people know who hasn't died.

The best thing about hardcore I can remember was, back in early days of Diablo 2, if you entered in anywhere you level 60+, you were amazing. Just being a high level meant something. I had a lvl 67 paladin (my highest on d2 old days), i was like 24th on ladder. It was ton of fun.

Also, open world PvP would not exist, as that would be too much. My idea is don't make a game around it solely, just add it on as an extra function for those who may want it. Also, make sure you have amazing non-glitchy servers/network. But i think it could be a blast.

Cryomatrix

cameltosis · June 2017

It all comes down to how much you lose when you die, and how easy it is to replace.

With the standard crop of MMOs, I would be very much against permadeath. You would lose far too much and it would take far too long to get back to where you were. That loss means you then fear death, which in turn means you become very cautious in your gameplay. I don't want that in my games, especially as I like my PvP where death has to be present for it to be fun.

That said, if there was a dramatic shift in game design then it would be possible. Closest example I can think of would be something like state of decay. You recruit a large group of playable characters and can progress each one. It only takes a short amount of time to max each character, so the loss is small, and if you do lose one you can instantly switch to another and get back to the action quickly.

This only works because:

1) Small power gaps
2) Easy to replace what you lose
3) Long term progression separated from playable characters (namely, your base progression).

Kyleran · June 2017

Considering most players won't tolerate full loot, minor experience loss or deleveling on death I can't see this idea ever gaining much traction.

People mistake the letters "RP" in RPG or MMORPG to stand for "Role Playing"

Maybe at one time in the distant past but since I first started playing single player RPGs in the late 80s they more accurately represent the phrase "regular progression."

I consider progression to be a core pillar of the RPG genre, so mechanics which inhibit, roll back or eliminate progression gains in a large way are not viable.

I play EVE and do lose stuff, but the risk is manageable and no matter if I lose all of wealth I still have my highly skilled characters.

EVE in the last few years eliminated the mechanic where getting podded without a current clone cost a pilot one of his highest, long train skills.

Though players rarely suffered losses, it happened more than it should have and I witnessed more than one player cancel their subs when they screwed up and lost a skill that may have taken 65 days to train.

Severe losses are a sure way to drive off paying customers so perma death is just never really going to fly without some form of mitigation as COE is promising.

Time will tell if they can make it actually work.

Sovrath · June 2017

Nyctelios said:

Sovrath said:

learis said:

What are your thoughts about permadeath in mmos? They exist in games like Diablo where you can choose hardcore. Can they translate to mmos? Also, are there any current mmos with permadeath or semi-permadeath?

The thing is, there is a disconnect with the idea of permadeath and one's "character" when it comes to mmo's.

As soon as you say "permadeath" people think of their World of Warcraft Character or some such thing, how many month's they put into the character (or years in some games) only to lose it.

My guess is that any game that has "permadeath" would not be base around "character" but family. It wouldn't be so gear dependent.

Look at Darkest Dungeon (yes I know not an mmo[rpg]).

You can level a character only to have that character die at any time. Yet there isn't a lot of kvetching because the game is more about your roster of characters. Oh sure, you name them and they have some importance but if they die you can keep their worn items (provided the party can escape/prevail) and then level another.

But until some players understand that they aren't losing purples or that a permadeath game is NOT about the character it's going to be a hard sell.

So your vision is not roguelike, but rogue lite instead.

Some sort of perma progression while temporary progression is loss.

I'll be honest, I see the term "roguelike" bandied around but it makes no sense.

Very few people are going to put in months/years on a character only to have that obliterated. Especially if they have to continually do the same content over and over.

However, when you take the focus off of individual character progression and progress some larger entity then there is less of a feeling of futility.

The other way to go about it is to make progression easy. This way, if a character dies it's not going to dissuade a player from making a new one and continuing.

What needs to be avoided is a sense of Sisyphean futility.

I'll also add that x-com is a prime example of how to do this.

Steelhelm · June 2017

When I hear the word perma-death, I immediately start thinking mechanics how perma-death could be made to enhance gameplay and roleplay.

Like in case of a wipe having secondary characters that come with wagons to pile the deceased heroes on them and take them to a nearby or not so nearby temple to be resurrected. If they manage to do it in a certain time even in a week, perma-death denied.

Another type or an added type of perma-death I'm thinking is spawning naked where ever the character started the game. That imo would make one hell of an mmo mechanic.

An additional cool perma-death mechanic would be to raise a deceased character as a weakened undead either back as a PC or as an NPC once.

Tiamat64 · June 2017

Personally, if I wanted my progress to constantly be resetting, I'd go play a MOBA or something.

That said, as mentioned above, permadeath probably fits the roguelike genre better, because those games are at least slightly (sometimes greatly) different every time you play through them, unlike an MMORPG.

An MMORPG with perma death will have to be built around that mechanic, and at that point it loses to roguelikes because roguelikes are already built around that mechanic without the myriad of balance issues and complications that the MMORPG genre brings to the table.

Steelhelm · June 2017

Tiamat64 said:

Personally, if I wanted my progress to constantly be resetting, I'd go play a MOBA or something.

That said, as mentioned above, permadeath probably fits the roguelike genre better, because those games are at least slightly (sometimes greatly) different every time you play through them, unlike an MMORPG.

I agree. In MMORPGs simple true perma-death isn't ideal.

What might be ideal imo with perma-death mechanics:
You don't lose stuff in the bank. Your other characters can get those, or an account bank etc.
Gear is dropped on ground at death and can be picked by your other characters only or just by anybody. For realism I'd prefer the latter. Then you can perhaps acquire it back for your other character from your friends who picked it up.
Some kind of account based skill, money, gold etc progression.

Sovrath · June 2017

Nyctelios said:

Roguelike is what it is: Games like Rogue. In this case I'm just focusing on permadeath mechanics.

I know what rogue means, no game I've seen that has the moniker "rogue" added to it even remotely match the definition.

But getting back to the point, yes, some sort of "meta" progression is what I think would make a perma death game work.

Texas7 · June 2017

I am a fan of permadeath. It is highly immersive in terms of RP.

MrMelGibson · June 2017

Nyctelios said:

Well, I think what PoE does is a good way to handle it;

If you create a character in any of the hardcore leagues (difficulties) and it dies he gets transfer to standard non hardcore league.

It wouldn't suit a mmo style without some changes, but it could be done, imo.

I did not know that. That is actually a really great idea. I never made a hardcore character in D3 because I didn't want to spend all that time to get D/Ced during a fight with an NPC and log in to find myself dead. My time is more valuable than that. But this version I could get behind.

Sovrath · June 2017

Nyctelios said:

Sovrath said:

Nyctelios said:

Roguelike is what it is: Games like Rogue. In this case I'm just focusing on permadeath mechanics.

I know what rogue means, no game I've seen that has the moniker "rogue" added to it even remotely match the definition.

But getting back to the point, yes, some sort of "meta" progression is what I think would make a perma death game work.

Because they are roguelite, not roguelike. It means they have some minor features from Rogue. The term was coined by the creators of Rogue Legacy. If you play Rogue Legacy (or Enter the Gungeon or Dead Cells) you'll see the difference.

So it has nothing to do with the word but some obscure game. Gotcha! Given how gamerz think this now makes MUCH more sense. Oh it would figure. Thanks for the clarification.

btdt · June 2017

Funny thing is... Perma Death and Semi Perma Death is in every game right this very minute. It is handled exactly the way you want it to be handled because you have 100% control over it.

How so? Simple. You want perma death, you delete your character whenever you get killed! Semi Perma Death? Why you impose your own penalty... don't log in to your character for a week, don't repair for a week, sell everything on you at the time of your death!

Oh wait, you only want these features if they are imposed on every player in game... otherwise you don't want perma death or semi perma death.

Sovrath · June 2017

btdt said:

Funny thing is... Perma Death and Semi Perma Death is in every game right this very minute. It is handled exactly the way you want it to be handled because you have 100% control over it.

How so? Simple. You want perma death, you delete your character whenever you get killed! Semi Perma Death? Why you impose your own penalty... don't log in to your character for a week, don't repair for a week, sell everything on you at the time of your death!

Oh wait, you only want these features if they are imposed on every player in game... otherwise you don't want perma death or semi perma death.

Naw, that doesn't work. The whole idea of a "game" or "game world" is for everyone to be on the same playing field. It has more meaning if everyone has the same trials and tribulations in the game world.

Everything would lose meaning if the Uber Boss that causes deleveling and takes 2 hours to kill if you're lucky can also have a noob settings where you can stand there and take no damage and one shot it with damage to spare.

The whole idea of an multiplayer game is not just to be standing around other players but to have a shared experience.

Cryomatrix · June 2017

In PoE hardcore, if my char dies, I stop playing them, because I cannot stomach playing softcore in PoE.

Yeah, you lose your char but if i played SC only, i would have stopped playing PoE a long time ago as I would have gotten bored.

Cryomatrix

waynejr2 · June 2017

btdt said:

Funny thing is... Perma Death and Semi Perma Death is in every game right this very minute. It is handled exactly the way you want it to be handled because you have 100% control over it.

How so? Simple. You want perma death, you delete your character whenever you get killed! Semi Perma Death? Why you impose your own penalty... don't log in to your character for a week, don't repair for a week, sell everything on you at the time of your death!

Oh wait, you only want these features if they are imposed on every player in game... otherwise you don't want perma death or semi perma death.

That actually isn't the same thing. It in a small minded way sounds like it might be the same but it is in fact not the same. A PD game, a group dies they are all dead. Under your system, they could agree to "delete" but some might choose to not do it that way.

Allow players to make a selection during character creation with say a slider: 1-10. 10 being PD upon death, 1 is the lowest "penalty" (which could be nothing to those thinking to make a point about it). With a variety of things in between like body recovery in EQ.

But using this approach, the player knows he doesn't have control over PD if he chooses it and dies. Your case, he can chicken out of it.

Brald_Ironheart · June 2017

Possible if MMORPGs are made in different ways than most are made now.

Akulas · June 2017

Rogue lite isn't a genre but a set of design choices (perma death, procedural generation and rewards that last longer than your current character) so that can be any game from any genre you want it to be. You meant rogue like like not a Roguelike (turn based, tile based, one chance, no perma rewards after death).

Rogue lite is if you played rogue and had permanent benefits after you died instead of having to start over which if Rogue was based off of Rogue would be a Roguelike. Don't know if that makes sense to anyone but it's easy to tell the difference.

Wizardry · June 2017

There is one problem i figure with perma death.

You need to be able to run from a fight,however when you allow that to be too easy then you create a VERY easy combat system ,especially for kiting.if you don't allow the realistic scenario of running/fleeing then why have the realism of perma death.

Gaming is not and never will be reality,however we can at least mimic death.on the subject of mimic death,not many a developer has done that very well at all,every death situation misuses the term,similar to devs misusing the term mmo and rpg.Seems game devs have got a free pass to misuse many terms,including invest which often KS 's are using and the term FREE as in f2p,so yeah seems gaming is a blackmark on not using terms properly.

4507 · June 2017

I think permadeath could work in an MMORPG if it's not based around character progression, but instead family or community progression, where once you die as a character, you could be resurrected as another family or community member who until then had been an NPC.

Wizardry · June 2017

4507 said:

I think permadeath could work in an MMORPG if it's not based around character progression, but instead family or community progression, where once you die as a character, you could be resurrected as another family or community member who until then had been an NPC.

Resurrection is still just a FAKE death,if we are going to use the term DEATH,then it needs to appear as death and the only way is to mimic death.
To resurrect is simply a time period,no different than dusting yourself off and going back at it 1/2/3 minutes later.

I would much prefer the proper use of terms,such as KO'd,unconscious and then mimic that through realistic measures such as less dexterity ,less mobility for a certain time period until you recover.Then if a developer is not lazy and cheap create various levels of injury,various time to recover.

4507 · June 2017

Wizardry said:

4507 said:

I think permadeath could work in an MMORPG if it's not based around character progression, but instead family or community progression, where once you die as a character, you could be resurrected as another family or community member who until then had been an NPC.

Resurrection is still just a FAKE death,if we are going to use the term DEATH,then it needs to appear as death and the only way is to mimic death.
To resurrect is simply a time period,no different than dusting yourself off and going back at it 1/2/3 minutes later.

I would much prefer the proper use of terms,such as KO'd,unconscious and then mimic that through realistic measures such as less dexterity ,less mobility for a certain time period until you recover.Then if a developer is not lazy and cheap create various levels of injury,various time to recover.

But that would be permadeath. Not permadeath for the account, but for the character. Perhaps resurrected was the wrong word, as it would not be the same character that came back to life, but rather it would be the player inhabiting a new character (such as the original character's child), with pre-existing attributes, skills, life choices, etc that have been influenced by family/community dynamics.

waynejr2 · June 2017

Wizardry said:

There is one problem i figure with perma death.

You need to be able to run from a fight,however when you allow that to be too easy then you create a VERY easy combat system ,especially for kiting.if you don't allow the realistic scenario of running/fleeing then why have the realism of perma death.

So basically you created a BS situation with your point.

Hawkaya399 · December 2017

MMO's and RPGs and other games are often based on building a character--a alternate life. LOSING that character is sometimes in conflict but not necessarily irreconcilable with progressing it. It's the same issue when you put PvP and PvE together. They don't have to conflict, but htey tend to. I've long enjoyed PvP/PvE/FFA, even though they're seemingly in extreme conflict. It's not impossible.

I think different players have different tolerances for loss. I think this correlates with their desire for risk, and to a lesser but still important extent reward. It hurts EVERYONE when they die and lose something, but some people put more value on it, so it becomes a thing they endure.

In early Everquest, you lost experience and you had to recover your corpse. Corpses could be deleted if you didn't recover them in time, including all your worn gear and inventory. On PvP servers, you could additionally lose carried money and 1 item upon death. In Diablo 2 HC, you lost everyting when you died. Either way, you lose time. It all amounts to lost time, regardless how severe. For players, loss is important in creating risk. But different players want different amounts. There're majority groups and smaller minorities.

In single player, I prefer respawning when I die, but I also like some loss. I find saving/loading is cumbersome. Not only does it put more strain on the harddrive, but it forces us to manage saves. I much prefer respawning with some losses and playing more naturally through it.

Whatever your label is, be it permadeath or death penalty or semi-permdeath, it can be defined as a loss in time. How much? The greater the loss, the smaller the audience will be for the game. The more expensive a game is, the lower the loss has to be to fund the game. It follows only cheap or old games will have permadeath defined as extreme losses of time. If we're liberal, we can define permadeath to only mean the death of the avatar and only a small loss in time. This is easily done if the avatar doesn't represent most of your wealth or influence. Its death might hurt, but it's a small blip. In retrospect, redefining minor death penalties as permadeath is dishonest but I suspect many game developers will do so to say "Hey, we have p3rmd3ath!"

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Permadeath and Semi-permadeath in MMOs

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Permadeath and Semi-permadeath in MMOs

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV