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Death matters...
Aermord
Member Posts: 17
Death matters...
.. But in the majority of MMORPGs it doesn't.
Real life is too short, and there is one inevitable truth we all know: One day we are going to die. Based on this fact, we struggle through life, trying to make it matter. The things we do matters, because we only got this one life to live.
In the majority of MMORPGs death doesn't matter. Death is just a nuisance, you spawn back at some location and got to run back to where you were, maybe you lost a bit of xp, maybe you got a penalty tagged on for awhile. But bottom line is death doesn't matter and thus the life of your avatar doesn't matter.
I play Blood Bowl. It's not an MMORPG for those of you who do not know this game. It's a tactical turnbased american football clone set in the warhammer theme universe. Owning the game, I'm able to play in online leagues against thousand of players. Each match my players can get experience that can get them better skills and such. This means I can develop my team over time, making it stronger, just like a character in an MMORPG gets stronger over time. But in each match I also risk that the opposing team injures or kills some of my players. If a player sustains a bad enough injury, he can be rendered useless, and if he is killed - he's dead, of course. The end result is that I'm nervous before every match. I want my team to survive.. I want them to survive even more than I want them to win. This feeling makes each game matter, it makes your heart beat, because you risk everything. And because of this, you end up playing an epic game - every time.
I wish MMORPGs would soon overcome their fear of introducing permanent death. I want the feeling that my character matters, that his choices matters and that I should consider risk vs reward in everything I do. With the huge number of similar MMORPGs on the market today, it would really be cool if somone got the guts to truly try something new.
Comments
I hope you find something to your liking. I just hope it doesn't become mainstream, as I find death penalties in games to be an extreme turn off. I'm not interested in losing my stuff. I've never found any pleasure at besting someone in a game with full loot or permadeath, and losing in a game like that pretty much guarantees an uninstall if I lost any significant amount of time.
Making death matter is very dangerous for today's MMOs, even in most simple punhishments. In PVP you can often see people avoid big fights and objectives to stay alive just because the death will show up on the scoresheet. ( And this is a MUCH bigger problem in FPS games ) Also there are endless complains about players being crown controled, even if its just for a few seconds they feel that they should always have control of their character. No company will risk making death interfere too much with your entertainment.
I don't know about you, but I'm having my brain cryogenically frozen.
I agree. If you want PVP as its tailored together in one of the gazillion more or less similar MMORPGs on the market now, permanent death would most likely not work.
It would simply need another kind of system. I tried it back in the day with the persistent player driven worlds of Neverwinter Nights. And permanent death could work excelent, even with open PVP. People were simply more ingenious when they attempted assasination. - There were less deaths as well, which doesn't have to result in worse gameplay at all.
Permanent death will work, it just need to have a system of its own tailored around it, something different from what you find in most of todays MMORPGs.
The problem is that most of you have a wow-like mentality. In games with full loot you don't have to farm a boss for a week to get your shoulders. In those games your gear is mainly provided by crafters or industrialists. The whole game is adapted for the full loot.
The progression in those games isn't about empowering directly your character but about developing side skills, notably social ones, in order to increase your revenue and being able to re-supply your character upon its death. In my opinion the risk of losing your gear anyway anytime enhances the overall gaming experience. Safety isn't that fun.
You are not describing 'permadeath' but rather 'item loss'. Permadeath would be if after a game loss, your entire team was executed and all your money and resources confiscated and you had to start a new team from scratch.
The possibility of losing a player is merely item loss since you are losing 'items' you spent time developing and have to go back and get them again from the same source.
Also the 'epic game' feeling is purely subjective for you. I find these types of mechanics merely a form of gambling and thus second rate. For me 'epic games' are those where the thwo opponents can play a great game, analyze their mistakes and then reste the board to the starting position and then play the matchup again playing even better than before. Handicaping one of the players because of a past lost would defeat the purpose of this and thus make it less 'epic'.
I think it would be great if death mattered, but if it did, the games would have to change significantly to make death more avoidable.
PvP has already been discussed. In today's ridiculous excuse for pvp .. a death penalty just won't work. You are basically expected to die, constantly in pvp in these games. They are designed with that in mind. You aren't supposed to be able to survive.
Raiding and 5 mans are the same way.
Games used to have things like evac spells where you could hearth in combat. Classes that can get out of combat and rez to skip the penalty are another old option.
Really to me though, in pvp especially, if combat was to take longer and not be the 15 seconds of rooted, stunned, silenced, dead .. they would be more fun and you could actually have a more meaningful death penalty.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Lemi just quote this little bit... and reply...
to all of those people who think life is too short, it is the longest thing you will do.
Some people will come back with smart comments, but think about it.
Put through the personal paces of my crippled fingers.
I think more may simply give players the option to play in a perma death mode, like DDO or Shaiya.
However, you can also just institute your own perma-death play style in any mmorpg, you can pull the cord on a downed character just as easily as the game itself could.
Instituting your own perma-death play style is not good enough because every mechanic in MMORPGs is build up around your character being able to die easily. In todays MMORPGs death is just like a temporary game over, providing something annoying you have to overcome (xp loss, running back, etc.) before you can "get back in the game".
@azmundai: I agree with you, for a perma-death system to work, the PVP as we know it would have to be changed dramatically. As you say, it shouldn't be something where you are more or less expected to die, but something in stead where you face a risk of dying - permanently. It wouldn't hurt either that you would be strongly needing allies around you, who could help protect you in a fight and help pull you out if you get wounded.
@Torik I know that I described "item loss" in the Blood Bowl example in my initial post. But permanent death in an MMORPG would accomplish the same approach I would have to the game, being careful, nervous and on edge - because my choices in the game would matter. Of course, as you say, the feelings I describe are subjective only for me - yet perhaps there are others out there who feel the same?
I think the moment some game company got the guts to build a game up around permanent death, we will see an MMORPG revolution, as in more will follow. I have seen it work back when Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds where hot, and it could work just as easily in an MMORPG.
Yes, instituting your own death penalty would make things inconvenient and hard. Imagine that.
But anyways: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/09/e3-2011-first-look-at-wizardry-online/
The main issue is that death penalties in virtually every harsh-death game out there tend to send players to the most shitty-designed features of the game, whereas other games let players engage in the best-designed features of the game continually.
Most players are able to quickly identify when a game is min-maxing it's capability of providing entertainment, so a lot of us stay away from games which willingly (or accidentally) waste our time with poorly-designed side featues.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Making 'death' matter in an MMO setting will be rejected by the vast majority of players.
Even within the game.
EVE-Online provides the perfect example of this.
Only 16% of EVE's population are in 0.0.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Actually, one could argue that EVE Online is the perfect example of how players like knowing there is significant penalty for failure but prefer to be able to control the chance or rate at which they are exposed to danger.
The reason harsh death penalties are rejected in most MMOs is because devs implement the penalties counter to how they are designing the game.
Most game content is made so that players can chose their level of risk, chance of loss and rate of gain. For example, a player can fight lower level mobs for steady zero risk gain or higher level mobs for higher gains at higher risk. These gains can be XP, loot or anything else. The more the game resitricts the range that one can choose from - cutting off gains from lower levels or reducing the gains from too high a level - the less appealing the content is becuase it does not allow the player to choose their comfort zone.
The same applies to the penalty for failure, as well. Here are a few games where the players accept rather harsh penalties for failure and how they can mitigate or choose their level of risk.
Puzzle Pirates* - loss and gain is based on what you brought to the battle. Large inventory for backup equipment. Easily obtainable loot.
Asheron's Call - death items and tinkering to adjust what drops on death. Large inventory for backup equipment. Easily obtainable loot.
Ultima Online - Multiple levels of guarded/unguarded content. Insurance. Trammel/Felucca. Large inventory for backup equipment. Easily obtainable loot.
EVE Online - Multiple levels of guarded/unguarded content. Large inventory for backup equipment. Easily obtainable loot.
See a pattern?
It's not that players do not want death to matter, it's that most MMOs offer little down the line of how one can mitigate the exposure to it other than moving to universally less rewarding/challenging content.
* - PVP specific mechanics.
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
83.4% of statistics are highly misleading.
4 of my 6 EVE characters are currently located in hi-sec. I am a 0.0 player and I absolutely do enjoy "full loot FFA"
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I do think there could be ways to do item loss and perma death but they would have to be able to be undone as well, ofcourse not without any effort. A good example from my point of view would be like your character gets riddled with arrows and dies, after the battle any remaining friends would be able to drag your body and preserve it somewhere safe say; a temple.
Your soul is sent to the underworld and your free to roam there and maybe even train/craft/level to a certain extent. So now you cannot get out and your stuck there however your friend(s) or second character can start a quest chain/travel to the underworld and beat a jailer boss all to save you and resurrect you in the process.
When resurrected this way you could also be penalized by having lost your gear, reduction to stats/xp and maybe even have a limited amount of resurrections.
I know this doesn't sound like full perma death but it would pull in more players and still offer the "dead is dead" feeling since it would be dead as long as you don't do the quest/defeat the boss or if you ran out of resurrections.
These are all suggestions ofcourse but i agree it would be nice if some mmo tried something like this.
The best way to assess the fun factor of an idea isn't how cool it would be when someone wants to do it but how cool it would be when someone would rather be doing something else.
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
Death penalties are niche game mechanics. The harsher the penalty the more niche it will be. Bottom line.
Yep, numbers can be looked at from two different view points.
But if I'm a game designer at EVE-Online and think, 'Which content does the playerbase do the most so what I do will be beneficial the most amount of players?' I don't think 0.0 is it.
If a higher up say '84% are in hi-sec, why don't we cater to them since they are the majority?' what's your answer?
It used to be that 20% of the playerbase was in 0.0 but I'm assuming the anom changes meant some people re-located to other ISK fountains like incursion and L4 missions, hence now only 16% occupy 0.0.
EVE's whole marketing campaign is 'Stuff you do matters!', that's what they have going for it, but even then only 16% actively will take part in 'Full Loot PVP'.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
That's an interesting view.
Do you truly feel that only 0.0 PVP is gameplay that has impact on the game world? If so, I'm interested in why you feel all the other actions have no meaning.
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
0.0 PVP is the quickest way to see change in the EVE game world. Whether it is sov changing hands or w/e.
Jita ain't changing no matter what, nor is NPC space.
From a game design level though, nerf/buff of 0.0 resources/ISK faucets (Moon goo/anom etc) will have an impact but those aren't generally under player control.
The meta-gaming has a huge impact and are player-driven but they are confined to 0.0 and market manipulation (which is used for 0.0 pvp)
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I agree that for many, the territory control is the easiest way to see the change. My interest was regarding your statement that only the 0.0 PVP matters or makes any change. Could you elaborate on that?
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
If I were a game designer looking to initiate a large project to improve EVE (aka: an expansion) then I might just take the trouble to do a slightly more in-depth analysis of what actually happens in the game rather than rely on one single 2-year old metric stripped of it's context.
The very fact that 0.0 players often feel the necessity to have the majority of their characters in hi-sec would in and of itself indicate to me that 0.0 was an area of the game that urgently needed work. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the "16% of characters are in 0.0" number is still accurate, and that my case is typical of 0.0 players. If I no longer felt the need to have my characters in hi-sec, then I would move them to 0.0. Suddenly that "16%" becomes "48%".
Suddenly there are more 0.0 characters than anywhere else. Imagine that!
EDIT: Incidentally you are forgetting the 4-5% who live in lo-sec and W-space - they also tend to have disproportionate numbers of hi-sec alts. Cutting the umbilical to hi-sec could easily lead to over 60% of characters residing in "Full Loot PvP" space.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I'd say the terriotrial control is the only way to see change in EVE.
Once again the slogan of 'stuff you do matters!' should mean that the world of EVE changes to what I do.
Me doing L4 missions over and over and over again does jack in the EVE world.
Me doing mining/PI/research/WH etc over and over and over does jack as well.
In the end, it is 0.0 PVP.
Or get a disgrunted CEO who'll switch to the other side like that Butterfly trailer.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Well, if we suppose for argument sake that I'm a typical 0.0 then 100% will be in 0.0 so yeah, that logic doesn't really work.
We need more data so lets see what CCP (who has all the numbers they need) actually did.
And yeah, lets drop the hyperbole and agree that CCP is a normal average competent company.
Jump Bridge? Nerfed.
Anomaly? Nerfed.
Biggest and most hyped expansion? Walk in STATION.
I'm sure CCP ran the numbers more than just '16%' but what you say isn't what CCP is doing based upon those numbers.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.