You're underthinking it. Simulations of combat in games is totally underepresenting the experience. Oftentimes you don't feel the exhilaration, fear, anxiety, comradery etc that comes with real combat. Now granted the real life experience is terrible and not at all enjoyable but I do think games could do more to make us feel the experience more intensely. What is holding these kinds of games back? Death. The current systems make your attachment to the experience too shallow. Permadeath would make the game unfun/unplayable. We need something better.
Before posting, take a moment to think about how death affects all the other systems in your favorite games. How implementing a different death system would change them etc. Death is something you typically don't think about much but it's a huge hurdle from a design perspective and one that has implications on almost every other feature in the game.
I'd venture to say you are also underthinking it.
'Death' is a mechanic of the game. A mechanic designed to create incentive for the player. Further, a mechanic designed to create an incentive through 'punishment'.
Why in the world would we limit our games to one single punitive incentive to live? And why would 15 years after the fact we would expect our games to be stagnated on that one mechanic?
If you want to think deeper about it - demand that games create a variety of incentives to live. Punishment through death can be one of course - but if you really think about it, so many years and so many mmo's later there should be a plethora of varying incentives to avoid death. It's baffling to me that our only two choices are 'harsh death penalty' or 'no death penalty'.
What about loot gets better if you don't die? What about, you don't lose anything, but if you wipe in the dungeon, the bosses increase in strength - feeding off your failure? What about perks and honors for having a statistically low number of deaths?
Imagine a game which had a thousand different options for you to weigh before you decided you can go in all leeroy jenkins or whether you need to hold back and use caution?
But.....if you really really want to think that the only thing that truly motivates us as players is fearing a punitive death, well - I see a broader picture.
I am of course not saying, things are fine as they are; I'm saying that while we should respect the mechanics of the past, I'd rather look to the future.
To me, 'death penalty' mentality is stuck in a box from 1999 and I submit, you should try thinking outside of it.
You're underthinking it. Simulations of combat in games is totally underepresenting the experience. Oftentimes you don't feel the exhilaration, fear, anxiety, comradery etc that comes with real combat. Now granted the real life experience is terrible and not at all enjoyable but I do think games could do more to make us feel the experience more intensely. What is holding these kinds of games back? Death. The current systems make your attachment to the experience too shallow. Permadeath would make the game unfun/unplayable. We need something better.
Before posting, take a moment to think about how death affects all the other systems in your favorite games. How implementing a different death system would change them etc. Death is something you typically don't think about much but it's a huge hurdle from a design perspective and one that has implications on almost every other feature in the game.
I'd venture to say you are also underthinking it.
'Death' is a mechanic of the game. A mechanic designed to create incentive for the player. Further, a mechanic designed to create an incentive through 'punishment'.
Why in the world would we limit our games to one single punitive incentive to live? And why would 15 years after the fact we would expect our games to be stagnated on that one mechanic?
If you want to think deeper about it - demand that games create a variety of incentives to live. Punishment through death can be one of course - but if you really think about it, so many years and so many mmo's later there should be a plethora of varying incentives to avoid death. It's baffling to me that our only two choices are 'harsh death penalty' or 'no death penalty'.
What about loot gets better if you don't die? What about, you don't lose anything, but if you wipe in the dungeon, the bosses increase in strength - feeding off your failure? What about perks and honors for having a statistically low number of deaths?
Imagine a game which had a thousand different options for you to weigh before you decided you can go in all leeroy jenkins or whether you need to hold back and use caution?
But.....if you really really want to think that the only thing that truly motivates us as players is fearing a punitive death, well - I see a broader picture.
I am of course not saying, things are fine as they are; I'm saying that while we should respect the mechanics of the past, I'd rather look to the future.
To me, 'death penalty' mentality is stuck in a box from 1999 and I submit, you should try thinking outside of it.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Possibility beyond what? You're over thinking this topic. Of course you don't want the player to never die. But over thinking the death system beyond dying and respawning is just punishing the player for playing your game and failing. A simple respawn system is perfect for any game so long as there's enough challenge within the game.
Is it really that simple? Please just take a moment and actually think about designing some games. Think of some scenarios. I'll give you a couple to get you thinking, but rather than try to find flaws in mine I challenge you to think of scenarios of your own where similar problems may be applicable:
1) You want to have PvP but you don't want players running at eachother mindlessly spamming spells until one dies. You want people to pick their battles, organize, flank, prepare for engagements. You don't want engagements to essentially often be decided by which side has the most players (ie the zerg effect). You want players to care about each death (both their own and their team mates) because it lowers the chances of their side winning. What kind of death system encourages players to play like this? Is this system designed for an instanced zone or a persistent world? Can you think of one that works in both?
Back it up a bit buddy, we're not talking zerging. That's a completely different problem all its own. Zerging has to do with the flaws in the developers design of their PvP system. If you centralize all the action into one single point or in very short distances of course you'll have zerging going on. You need to design systems to stop that.
Warhammer Online did quite a good job at keeping the death system to a minimum. You spawn at your zone's pvp entry point and then you enter the battlefield. However where they fell flat was to disperse the zerg mentality as it was too easy to win by capturing the very straight forward points-of-interest(s).
Unfortunately war is never fair and zerging will always happen.
2) You want to make parts of the world meaningful to visit, explore and adventure. How do you incentivize the player? What makes the journey special? Can everyone do it? How much effort does it take? What's your reward for doing it? Is a reward even a reward if there's no risk or effort involved? Now design a death system in a game that has some parts of the gameworld easily accessible and meaningless and some of them highly rewarding (no instances, everyone should be able to go there at the same time but only a few succeed) that is not exploitable to make the highly rewarding areas easy to get to.
Unfortunately for those who aren't good at video games. They'd find it hard to complete one if I had any say in it's outcome. I don't believe everyone's a winner. So if there's a portion of content that you can't beat in-order to progress. You're going to have to get better. I'm not going to penalize the player with a death system because they're trying. That'd be utterly stupid. I'd allow them to keep having at it. But it'll be their skill and willpower that'll allow them to progress through my game.
How do I add incentives for players to explore? I'll give bonuses to their character. Maybe uncovering a secret location that requires fighting an intense boss, complex puzzle, or jumping puzzle that unlocks bonus stats, unique trinkets or gear, and or skills. Once someone starts to explore and get more rewards for exploring the more that player will want to find even more secrets and challenges. Do I need to add death penalties to this? No, not at all. Sure, you can die to that intense boss fight requiring you to run back to that hidden location. But if you're doing a jumping puzzle one might simply just fall and have to start over from scratch. A complex puzzle doesn't have to result in someone dying if they can't complete a puzzle. Although I could think of some pretty outrageous ways of dying in a game if you do fail at completing a puzzle.
You're kind of getting off topic now. None of the stuff you're talking about has anything to do about the death penalty system. You're just trying to force death on every aspect of the game and it doesn't have to be that way as long as the game's challenging.
And now we get to the source of your problem. You can't see how death systems relate to these issues. If you understood it you'd understand why I think it's so important.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
And now we get to the source of your problem. You can't see how death systems relate to these issues. If you understood it you'd understand why I think it's so important.
I think you got to realise that people who have opposing opinion to you, from what I can read, do understand. However in THEIR opinion it is not a priority to them or they don't have the same opinion on it as you.
Everyone has their own opinion on the importance/unimportance of the death mechanic and there is where your problem lies. You are going under the assumption that it is a statement of fact rather than an opinion. It is not. Death/penalty mechanic is a matter of opinion, and that opinion is diverse and everyone has different ideas from the looks of the comments.
That's why, what you said about the death mechanic and it's importance in the scheme of things is probably not reasonable to a lot of people. That's is also why developers tend to favor inclusive approach rather than exclusive.
One of my favorite (and MMO-appropriate) death-related things is the way in Terraria each player's death is verbally broadcast to the the other players in humorous terms. I think this would fit right in with games where it's announced on the world chat channel whenever a group defeats a boss or dungeon. That's not really a death system, more of an accessory to one, but I think that giving deaths (and also maybe births) more social meaning would be a good way for MMOs to go.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
And now we get to the source of your problem. You can't see how death systems relate to these issues. If you understood it you'd understand why I think it's so important.
I think you got to realise that people who have opposing opinion to you, from what I can read, do understand. However in THEIR opinion it is not a priority to them or they don't have the same opinion on it as you.
Everyone has their own opinion on the importance/unimportance of the death mechanic and there is where your problem lies. You are going under the assumption that it is a statement of fact rather than an opinion. It is not. Death/penalty mechanic is a matter of opinion, and that opinion is diverse and everyone has different ideas from the looks of the comments.
That's why, what you said about the death mechanic and it's importance in the scheme of things is probably not reasonable to a lot of people. That's is also why developers tend to favor inclusive approach rather than exclusive.
No, he doesn't understand the relationship. For example, he stated that Zerging, exploration and death systems are unrelated. This couldn't be farther from the truth. How the game deals with player failure/death has a huge effect on the behavior of players and how they approach situations. Not understanding the relationship between mechanics and how one design decision influences how players approach other facets of the game is a problem, you need to understand it to contribute intelligently to this discussion. I'm all for opposition, if it's at least intelligent. I've heard a few rebuttals in here that were in fact quite well conceived. His was not one, he just demonstrated a pure lack of understanding of the subject matter.
Originally posted by sunandshadow One of my favorite (and MMO-appropriate) death-related things is the way in Terraria each player's death is verbally broadcast to the the other players in humorous terms. I think this would fit right in with games where it's announced on the world chat channel whenever a group defeats a boss or dungeon. That's not really a death system, more of an accessory to one, but I think that giving deaths (and also maybe births) more social meaning would be a good way for MMOs to go.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
There's no budging you from your blindness then. This topic stops dead in your tracks as you're obviously not open for discuss.
With you I'm not, you can't discuss something with someone who doesn't understand the subject. I can't believe I'm saying this but the biggest troll on the forums (Nariusseldon) understands the topic better. I can't convince him because the fact is he likes how things are and doesn't care for change (which is the basis of most of his arguments in every topic). At least he knows that there's a relationship though between the death/failure system and how players approach everything in the game, he just doesn't see a need to change anything, and I can't argue with that logic.
And now we get to the source of your problem. You can't see how death systems relate to these issues. If you understood it you'd understand why I think it's so important.
I think you got to realise that people who have opposing opinion to you, from what I can read, do understand. However in THEIR opinion it is not a priority to them or they don't have the same opinion on it as you.
Everyone has their own opinion on the importance/unimportance of the death mechanic and there is where your problem lies. You are going under the assumption that it is a statement of fact rather than an opinion. It is not. Death/penalty mechanic is a matter of opinion, and that opinion is diverse and everyone has different ideas from the looks of the comments.
That's why, what you said about the death mechanic and it's importance in the scheme of things is probably not reasonable to a lot of people. That's is also why developers tend to favor inclusive approach rather than exclusive.
No, he doesn't understand the relationship. For example, he stated that Zerging, exploration and death systems are unrelated. This couldn't be farther from the truth. How the game deals with player failure/death has a huge effect on the behavior of players and how they approach situations. Not understanding the relationship between mechanics and how one design decision influences how players approach other facets of the game is a problem, you need to understand it to contribute intelligently to this discussion. I'm all for opposition, if it's at least intelligent. I've heard a few rebuttals in here that were in fact quite well conceived. His was not one, he just demonstrated a pure lack of understanding of the subject matter.
There's no budging you from your blindness then. This topic stops dead in your tracks as you're obviously not open for discussion.
^ This.
Computers may be digital (0s and 1s) but human behaviours are quantum - you might be able to predict it but there are no certainties; and almost all are affected by the underlying of the opinion of a person.
Creativity has no "truth" or "standard template" or "best practices", and game design philosophies are NOT facts or gospel - it is all creativity. How player approach things is not standard from person to person, it differs.
There can be many good ways to do things with opposing philosophies when it comes to creative designs. Creative ideas are all opinions - and the opinion on this issue seems very diverse to me.
It is nice to be able to be reductive and abstract things to 1 simple system and all but that won't be inclusive of a lot of people and would in fact makes it "niche". If it is niche than it is by definition not an inclusive solution to, well, anything.
Possibility beyond what? You're over thinking this topic. Of course you don't want the player to never die. But over thinking the death system beyond dying and respawning is just punishing the player for playing your game and failing. A simple respawn system is perfect for any game so long as there's enough challenge within the game.
Is it really that simple? Please just take a moment and actually think about designing some games. Think of some scenarios. I'll give you a couple to get you thinking, but rather than try to find flaws in mine I challenge you to think of scenarios of your own where similar problems may be applicable:
1) You want to have PvP but you don't want players running at eachother mindlessly spamming spells until one dies. You want people to pick their battles, organize, flank, prepare for engagements. You don't want engagements to essentially often be decided by which side has the most players (ie the zerg effect). You want players to care about each death (both their own and their team mates) because it lowers the chances of their side winning. What kind of death system encourages players to play like this? Is this system designed for an instanced zone or a persistent world? Can you think of one that works in both?
2) You want to make parts of the world meaningful to visit, explore and adventure. How do you incentivize the player? What makes the journey special? Can everyone do it? How much effort does it take? What's your reward for doing it? Is a reward even a reward if there's no risk or effort involved? Now design a death system in a game that has some parts of the gameworld easily accessible and meaningless and some of them highly rewarding (no instances, everyone should be able to go there at the same time but only a few succeed) that is not exploitable to make the highly rewarding areas easy to get to.
You are designing an MMO. Are you going to intentionally design your MMO so that a certain percentage of players will become frustrated by a death penalty and quit the game??
Give your head a shake there man!! That mechanic is for single player games. The player has already paid for the game and knows what the challenge is. They either finish it or they don't but at least they paid for it.
In an MMO it is about player retention and you aren't going to retain players if you make them afraid to play and punish them for making mistakes. Hardcores might not love the idea but its already proven that they don't hang around any game for long anyway.
So sure, apply the kiss of death to your expensive MMO. Kill players and make them suffer for it. They are sure to come back for more and continue to pay for the priviledge.
Forgot to add: Of course everyone should be able to do it! Duh!!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Make it like if you die, you lose all your equipment that you are wearing on the spot. and X % of the item will drop. If you wanna get it back, you can go back to your corpse and retrieve.. Add much into the risk/reward experience.. Of course in like arena pvp, your gear wont dissapear because the arena dudes will retrieve your gear (corpse) and give you back X% of it without you actually travelling back to retrieve it.
just my 2cent.. definitely better than perma death and starting from scratch or derp I can pvp all day and lose cause the worst case scenario is I loss exp but its okay because I'm max lvl 99.
I"m surprised that so many debate and argue about many game mechanics such as death penalty, or XP is too fast, too slow or two whatever.. Has it occurred to most that ALL of these issues can be changed from server to server? ALL the devs have to do is just the code from one server versus others.. Isn't that something we should be demanding from the devs? I know I do.. I would love to see games like EQ and WoW to have different sets of rules per server.. It's not that hard to have different codes..
Originally posted by Rydeson I"m surprised that so many debate and argue about many game mechanics such as death penalty, or XP is too fast, too slow or two whatever.. Has it occurred to most that ALL of these issues can be changed from server to server? ALL the devs have to do is just the code from one server versus others.. Isn't that something we should be demanding from the devs? I know I do.. I would love to see games like EQ and WoW to have different sets of rules per server.. It's not that hard to have different codes..
It is far more complicated than you make it sound. Designing and maintaining multiple different rulesets is very difficult and expensive. It is already difficult enough to make one ruleset work well.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Most online games now are fine with allowing it to be done. They want people to accomplish things. Often. Over and over. Again and again.
Increasing risk of defeat/ failure doesn't work well in this scenario because the core of the mechanic is to ring every nanosecond of repeat play (grind) out of it a company can. In order for companies to rethink defeat/ death they need to rethink reward.
Exactly. If someone wants an accurate representation of the actual combat experience, go join the military and get into a war. That's about as realistic as it gets.
So your saying there's nothing in between the careless unorganized running amok in Call of Duty and real war? Dying is a terrible thing. Real life can be terrible. That's why we play games. But tell me, what do you think is more satisfying?
Of course there is a lot in between. Obviously you can play punishing sports like Football, and get concussion, or play EQ when it first released, and waste time staring at a spellbook.
But the point is whether it is good entertainment to use any of those.
It is not accidental that after so many years of video games development, got killed and respawn immediate at the last save point is the system used by most games. Don't tell me there was no exploration in the past. Simply, this simple play-again system works for many, and certainly works for me.
I obviously cannot say it is the *most* satisfying since there may be other systems out there, but certainly it is satisfying enough that i essentially forget its existence and enjoy the combat (or whatever gameplay).
There's no budging you from your blindness then. This topic stops dead in your tracks as you're obviously not open for discuss.
With you I'm not, you can't discuss something with someone who doesn't understand the subject. I can't believe I'm saying this but the biggest troll on the forums (Nariusseldon) understands the topic better. I can't convince him because the fact is he likes how things are and doesn't care for change (which is the basis of most of his arguments in every topic). At least he knows that there's a relationship though between the death/failure system and how players approach everything in the game, he just doesn't see a need to change anything, and I can't argue with that logic.
I applaud your intellectual honesty, and the realization that understanding does not always correlate with agreement (hence you can disagree with me often, but still see logic in what i am saying).
This discussion is of course fun, but in the end, moot. I doubt most dev is going to change what is not broken. I was playing Crysis 3 ... *same* die-respawn-save-point system used in practically every game, and i have no urge to ask the devs to change anything.
Comments
I'd venture to say you are also underthinking it.
'Death' is a mechanic of the game. A mechanic designed to create incentive for the player. Further, a mechanic designed to create an incentive through 'punishment'.
Why in the world would we limit our games to one single punitive incentive to live? And why would 15 years after the fact we would expect our games to be stagnated on that one mechanic?
If you want to think deeper about it - demand that games create a variety of incentives to live. Punishment through death can be one of course - but if you really think about it, so many years and so many mmo's later there should be a plethora of varying incentives to avoid death. It's baffling to me that our only two choices are 'harsh death penalty' or 'no death penalty'.
What about loot gets better if you don't die? What about, you don't lose anything, but if you wipe in the dungeon, the bosses increase in strength - feeding off your failure? What about perks and honors for having a statistically low number of deaths?
Imagine a game which had a thousand different options for you to weigh before you decided you can go in all leeroy jenkins or whether you need to hold back and use caution?
But.....if you really really want to think that the only thing that truly motivates us as players is fearing a punitive death, well - I see a broader picture.
I am of course not saying, things are fine as they are; I'm saying that while we should respect the mechanics of the past, I'd rather look to the future.
To me, 'death penalty' mentality is stuck in a box from 1999 and I submit, you should try thinking outside of it.
I like you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
And now we get to the source of your problem. You can't see how death systems relate to these issues. If you understood it you'd understand why I think it's so important.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Its not the combat, we approach the combat the way we do because of the death system. Different fail system means a different approach to combat.
Even the harshest death penalties won't save a bad combat system, but a good combat system is common to almost all good games.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Currently playing: Eldevin Online as a Deadly Assassin
Are you suggesting that you would just respawn next to a group member after so many minutes?
I'm sure he didn't mean that. You can't just copy-paste a "death system" from another game and hope it works.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I think you got to realise that people who have opposing opinion to you, from what I can read, do understand. However in THEIR opinion it is not a priority to them or they don't have the same opinion on it as you.
Everyone has their own opinion on the importance/unimportance of the death mechanic and there is where your problem lies. You are going under the assumption that it is a statement of fact rather than an opinion. It is not. Death/penalty mechanic is a matter of opinion, and that opinion is diverse and everyone has different ideas from the looks of the comments.
That's why, what you said about the death mechanic and it's importance in the scheme of things is probably not reasonable to a lot of people. That's is also why developers tend to favor inclusive approach rather than exclusive.
No, he doesn't understand the relationship. For example, he stated that Zerging, exploration and death systems are unrelated. This couldn't be farther from the truth. How the game deals with player failure/death has a huge effect on the behavior of players and how they approach situations. Not understanding the relationship between mechanics and how one design decision influences how players approach other facets of the game is a problem, you need to understand it to contribute intelligently to this discussion. I'm all for opposition, if it's at least intelligent. I've heard a few rebuttals in here that were in fact quite well conceived. His was not one, he just demonstrated a pure lack of understanding of the subject matter.
I like you
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
With you I'm not, you can't discuss something with someone who doesn't understand the subject. I can't believe I'm saying this but the biggest troll on the forums (Nariusseldon) understands the topic better. I can't convince him because the fact is he likes how things are and doesn't care for change (which is the basis of most of his arguments in every topic). At least he knows that there's a relationship though between the death/failure system and how players approach everything in the game, he just doesn't see a need to change anything, and I can't argue with that logic.
^ This.
Computers may be digital (0s and 1s) but human behaviours are quantum - you might be able to predict it but there are no certainties; and almost all are affected by the underlying of the opinion of a person.
Creativity has no "truth" or "standard template" or "best practices", and game design philosophies are NOT facts or gospel - it is all creativity. How player approach things is not standard from person to person, it differs.
There can be many good ways to do things with opposing philosophies when it comes to creative designs. Creative ideas are all opinions - and the opinion on this issue seems very diverse to me.
It is nice to be able to be reductive and abstract things to 1 simple system and all but that won't be inclusive of a lot of people and would in fact makes it "niche". If it is niche than it is by definition not an inclusive solution to, well, anything.
You are designing an MMO. Are you going to intentionally design your MMO so that a certain percentage of players will become frustrated by a death penalty and quit the game??
Give your head a shake there man!! That mechanic is for single player games. The player has already paid for the game and knows what the challenge is. They either finish it or they don't but at least they paid for it.
In an MMO it is about player retention and you aren't going to retain players if you make them afraid to play and punish them for making mistakes. Hardcores might not love the idea but its already proven that they don't hang around any game for long anyway.
So sure, apply the kiss of death to your expensive MMO. Kill players and make them suffer for it. They are sure to come back for more and continue to pay for the priviledge.
Forgot to add: Of course everyone should be able to do it! Duh!!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Make it like if you die, you lose all your equipment that you are wearing on the spot. and X % of the item will drop. If you wanna get it back, you can go back to your corpse and retrieve.. Add much into the risk/reward experience.. Of course in like arena pvp, your gear wont dissapear because the arena dudes will retrieve your gear (corpse) and give you back X% of it without you actually travelling back to retrieve it.
just my 2cent.. definitely better than perma death and starting from scratch or derp I can pvp all day and lose cause the worst case scenario is I loss exp but its okay because I'm max lvl 99.
It is far more complicated than you make it sound. Designing and maintaining multiple different rulesets is very difficult and expensive. It is already difficult enough to make one ruleset work well.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Most online games now are fine with allowing it to be done. They want people to accomplish things. Often. Over and over. Again and again.
Increasing risk of defeat/ failure doesn't work well in this scenario because the core of the mechanic is to ring every nanosecond of repeat play (grind) out of it a company can. In order for companies to rethink defeat/ death they need to rethink reward.
I applaud your intellectual honesty, and the realization that understanding does not always correlate with agreement (hence you can disagree with me often, but still see logic in what i am saying).
This discussion is of course fun, but in the end, moot. I doubt most dev is going to change what is not broken. I was playing Crysis 3 ... *same* die-respawn-save-point system used in practically every game, and i have no urge to ask the devs to change anything.