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Originally posted by heremypet
I predict that the next MMO phenomenon will be the one that embraces permadeath.

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As long as you can get killed by a glitchy connection, the chances of that are exactly zero.

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Originally posted by Angelicremix
When I die in game, the majority of the time it isn't due to my own mistakes.  It's because some idiot trained a bunch of mobs on me when I was already in a fight, or I get an unfortunate respawn while fighting a mob.  I play safe, I don't like getting into situations I can't handle because it wastes my time and money. 

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Sometimes it isn't your fault. A lot of the time it is. An "unfortunate respawn"? You should know where the respawn points are and not have your camp on top of one. You should also have enough party discipline that your party members don't wander away from camp and aggro something. If you do get a link, I have yet to see an MMORPG that did not provide you the tools to handle links--most of the time it's called "Sleep".

If someone is intentionally training mobs on you, that can be a different matter. I note that a lot of MMORPGs have implemented game mechanics where it's hard for someone not in your party to train mobs on you. If you are having trouble with that, you can generally complain to the GMs about it.

Originally posted by ChrisMattern

 

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Originally posted by Angelicremix
When I die in game, the majority of the time it isn't due to my own mistakes.  It's because some idiot trained a bunch of mobs on me when I was already in a fight, or I get an unfortunate respawn while fighting a mob.  I play safe, I don't like getting into situations I can't handle because it wastes my time and money. 

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Sometimes it isn't your fault. A lot of the time it is. An "unfortunate respawn"? You should know where the respawn points are and not have your camp on top of one. You should also have enough party discipline that your party members don't wander away from camp and aggro something. If you do get a link, I have yet to see an MMORPG that did not provide you the tools to handle links--most of the time it's called "Sleep".

If someone is intentionally training mobs on you, that can be a different matter. I note that a lot of MMORPGs have implemented game mechanics where it's hard for someone not in your party to train mobs on you. If you are having trouble with that, you can generally complain to the GMs about it.

I was thinking of instances in AO, specifically in the temple.  You and your party are taking things slow and all of a sudden you see a bunch of players from a different group run past you.  They are training mobs all the way from the end of the instance, trying to survive. You and your group get caught in the train and everyone is dead before you knew what hit you.  Do I, as a player, really deserve permadeath for that?  In the same instance, you can come across a fully cleared room, but who knows how long it's been cleared for.  Sometimes when trying to pull mobs back into a cleared room, you get caught by respawns because you didn't know where the mobs were or how long they'd been gone for.  Mistakes happen.

My main point is that sometimes the circumstances of your death are beyond your control and not due to a mistake you yourself made.  You pointed out internet connections, that is another good point.  I just don't see the fun in a game where you could lose everything you've worked for due to a technicality.

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Originally posted by Angelicremix

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Originally posted by ChrisMattern

 

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Originally posted by Angelicremix
When I die in game, the majority of the time it isn't due to my own mistakes.  It's because some idiot trained a bunch of mobs on me when I was already in a fight, or I get an unfortunate respawn while fighting a mob.  I play safe, I don't like getting into situations I can't handle because it wastes my time and money. 

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Sometimes it isn't your fault. A lot of the time it is. An "unfortunate respawn"? You should know where the respawn points are and not have your camp on top of one. You should also have enough party discipline that your party members don't wander away from camp and aggro something. If you do get a link, I have yet to see an MMORPG that did not provide you the tools to handle links--most of the time it's called "Sleep".
If someone is intentionally training mobs on you, that can be a different matter. I note that a lot of MMORPGs have implemented game mechanics where it's hard for someone not in your party to train mobs on you. If you are having trouble with that, you can generally complain to the GMs about it.

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I was thinking of instances in AO, specifically in the temple.  You and your party are taking things slow and all of a sudden you see a bunch of players from a different group run past you.  They are training mobs all the way from the end of the instance, trying to survive. You and your group get caught in the train and everyone is dead before you knew what hit you.  Do I, as a player, really deserve permadeath for that?  In the same instance, you can come across a fully cleared room, but who knows how long it's been cleared for.  Sometimes when trying to pull mobs back into a cleared room, you get caught by respawns because you didn't know where the mobs were or how long they'd been gone for.  Mistakes happen.
My main point is that sometimes the circumstances of your death are beyond your control and not due to a mistake you yourself made.  You pointed out internet connections, that is another good point.  I just don't see the fun in a game where you could lose everything you've worked for due to a technicality.

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I absolutely agree that sometimes it IS not your fault, and for that reason, permadeath is stupid. But I think death should sting a bit--not be enormously punishing, but sting a bit. I still think the death penalty in FFXI gets it almost exactly right--you lose somewhere between 10 minutes to maybe an hour's worth of experience as earned in a good XP party, depending on your level and whether or not you can get a Raise. Delevelling if the XP loss takes you below a level boundary is perhaps a bit harsh, but smart players know not to knock off as soon as you level--you stay on and get a buffer so you don't delevel if the worst happens.

 Vanilla WOW before gold flowed like water and there was only 1 graveyard per zone. The execution was CREATIVE...a ghostly alternate world.  You had 2 choices so you could run back a few minutes and some gear degradation or just pay the spirit for some temp stat loss.  The repair bills were fair at the time making you NOT want to die and could get sort of nasty with consecutive wipes with epic gear.  It stung without pissing you off.  I don't enjoy games that piss me off, but hey, some people enjoy being frustrated...I guess a game is cheaper than a shrink;)

Anything that equals around 10 minutes of total playtime when you add it all up is fair .  Penalties that can equal hours of replaying is a kick to the nuts and frankly, if you like that sort of thing you SERIOUSLY have no life or don't value your time.  You're paying a monthly fee to replay what you just did.  Think about that really carefully.

For all of those people who want harsher death penalties, you have plenty of tools at your disposal to increase any MMO's current penalty to your own hearts content.  BUT you won't.  We've been down that hypocritical road before=)

 RL death, but you can pay 19.95 to stay your "execution" per death.

Originally posted by Kalvasflamm

I find it hard to describe (especially in English while coming from Germany ;) and perhaps its a bit OT too. Everyone has a own opinion. And tbh: I kind of envy you. If you love instanced based games, you sure have a lot more games too chose from than I do :(

Your english is great, and you did a much better job explaining why you want that type of death penalty than I expected.  I still don't want that type of penalty personally, but you explained the logic behind what you want very well. (:

Originally posted by Pkmn_knight

Well I'd thought I'd ask people what their ideal Death Penalty in a mmorpg would be. I've made a small poll (like I do every thread) to show general options about it.  

But I want people to post what they think would be best. I hope I didn't leave any obvious one out of the poll

 

Mine would be either a Character deletion if the system was made so people can't just go arround killing everyone easily.
 

Or a Heaven system where's players go to a heavenly or Hell like place(depends on mechanics or lore religion or whatever) then there could be ways to be brought back to life. From a quest, to something like players having to gain ingredients for a body and resurrect soul.(Or for cash shop games, buy quick easy way out)

Well, I need to fully and totally disagree with character deletion. I put a lot of time into my toons and I would never play a game that threw away all that time and effort from a death.

Stat Loss: Maybe, but it needs to be either limited by time or fixable

Experience Loss: maybe

Money Loss: Lose 25-50% of your gold upon death? As long as there is a bank to store your cash.

Full Gear Loss: No-one's taking my epics, period.

Item Loss: Again, no

Heaven/ Hell: NOW HERE IS A GOOD IDEA! Pay attention Blizzard and Bioware: this is one of the more innovative ideas that I have heard recently. This not only adds a little more of a time sink to death (like the penalty in WoW, but also adds further quest and story options. In fact, having an MMO that operates on multiple planes is something that I would definately take a serious look at.

Originally posted by spades07

IDeal death penalty- where you lose certain gained bonuses which were accrued while you were alive and xping. So maybe a 5% chance of heal crit is added while you're xping for a while, then the second you're dead you lose that.

Definitely a great approach.  I like it.

Losing XP, levels, items, stats, skills, your character, etc .. those are just forcing timesinks on the player so that they have to grind back what they have lost. I don't understand why some players are so keen to artificially punish themselves.

My opinion is that the ideal penalty for failure is .. failure.

If I have a quest to go into a dungeon and kill a boss at the end, but I die halfway down .. respawning outside and having to start the entire dungeon again would be enough of a penalty for me. I failed to achieve the objective, so I have to try again.

All I "lose" is the time I spent on my first attempt, and if the content is well designed and fun then I should be happy to try again because, despite ultimately failing, I enjoyed the dungeon.

Edit: I'm fine with reasonable gold-sinks (repair costs, etc) too, and I like the idea of accruing bonuses/buffs while alive that are lost upon death. Such things penalise but don't punish.

Originally posted by altairzq

Corpse run naked with no maps no coords no nothing, only your friends to help you. This makes you respect the environment, respect others, help others, which means not being an asshole in game.

The good old days of EQ, where death was meaningful. The above penaltiies combined with an xp loss equivilent to about 10% of a level.

This was actually the best death penalty system I have seen to date. You were more careful, groups actually thought about what they were doing, and an epic recovery was something you could look back on for years to come. ( I still remember the corpse recovery after we wiped breaking into the Plane of Fear, I also remember a couple of months later helping another guild with their corpse recovery after they wiped in the same place. ).

Originally posted by Kalvasflamm

Simple: I can't imagine a better Death Penalty than Full Loot Drop. Why? Its kind of realistic, I think. You die, people take your stuff -> just like in RL ;)

I do not like these abstract ideas like skill loss, less experience etc. And I really hate the Wowish-games, where there is hardly any penalty to death. Imho, you can not win, if you are not able to lose sth.

Real doesnt always equal better. Just look at GT racing game from Sony.

Imo, Gear Damage, is the perfect DP. + Stat Damage. Similar to WoW.

DP, when its very risky, will scare off Players in World PvP. This is Bad. Why,,,,??

Because World PvP gets its epicness from the Population Numbers. Reducing the numbers (by scareing off players), reduces the Epicness.

Originally posted by Astralglide

Originally posted by Pkmn_knight

Well I'd thought I'd ask people what their ideal Death Penalty in a mmorpg would be. I've made a small poll (like I do every thread) to show general options about it.  

But I want people to post what they think would be best. I hope I didn't leave any obvious one out of the poll

 

Mine would be either a Character deletion if the system was made so people can't just go arround killing everyone easily.
 

Or a Heaven system where's players go to a heavenly or Hell like place(depends on mechanics or lore religion or whatever) then there could be ways to be brought back to life. From a quest, to something like players having to gain ingredients for a body and resurrect soul.(Or for cash shop games, buy quick easy way out)

Well, I need to fully and totally disagree with character deletion. I put a lot of time into my toons and I would never play a game that threw away all that time and effort from a death.

Stat Loss: Maybe, but it needs to be either limited by time or fixable

Experience Loss: maybe

Money Loss: Lose 25-50% of your gold upon death? As long as there is a bank to store your cash.

Full Gear Loss: No-one's taking my epics, period.

Item Loss: Again, no

Heaven/ Hell: NOW HERE IS A GOOD IDEA! Pay attention Blizzard and Bioware: this is one of the more innovative ideas that I have heard recently. This not only adds a little more of a time sink to death (like the penalty in WoW, but also adds further quest and story options. In fact, having an MMO that operates on multiple planes is something that I would definately take a serious look at.

Hmmm... ok my version of Hell would be in order to get out, you need to navigate a 100x100 grid, with no ambient lighting, and there is a maze-like safe path that you need to navigate in order to get to the door on the other side. The catch is each time you try, the maze randomly changes, and 1/2 of the tiles are safe to walk on, the other half are insta-death which makes you re-navigate the maze, minus one full level of experience... and this grid must be navigated by crouching (because of the low ceiling).

My second idea would be to make getting out of Hell easy, all you need is a "key or pass" to exit the secured portal. In order to get said key or pass it is dropped in a random location in an open PvP area with full loot option. ALL PvP'ers go who die, (gankers/BG kind of people, ect) are thrown into one massive, singular zoned arena. ONE key spawns in the middle of this circle every HOUR on the hour. The diameter of this circular hell is a virtual 5 miles, and with each spawn the portal exit changes as well.

My thrid idea of hell would be to show some awesome CG sequence of lens flare glory... all the while in the background force the computer to uninstall their game, block all IP addys to every MMO game other than Everquest, have the computer install only EQ classic, and force the internet connection to operate at only 14.4 baud.

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Kalvasflamm 

With "winning" I mean, that I can not play a game, where death has hardly no consequence. Why?  Because I could not get ANY thrill out of it. I love the idea, that whatever I do, there could always someone behind the next corner, kill me, and take all my things. "Winning" is the thrill I get out of game. Jesus, in UO I shit in my pants every time some red pops out, while I am hunting, fishing, Idocing, etc.

This is the real 'great divide' in this debate.  To someone like me what you described sounds weird and borders on a mental problem.   You seem unable to derive pleasure from basic game features without adding a masochistic element to it.  Rather than getting enjoyment from the challenge you enjoy the artificial fear that is generated.  It reminds me very much of the college kids who seem unable to have 'fun' without getting blind drunk.

 

Hmm, to be honest, I think the real problem is what you define as "challenge". It is no challenge for me doing some PvE-Stuff, Quests etc. There is nothing unpredictable in it. Same goes for raids. Although I do understand what some people "get" from this (achieving a "greater" goal with the guild for example), I really can not stand it. I am simply bored to death. I miss the "unpredictable"-factor that only comes from playing against other humans. I mean, why do people play games like Counterstrike, Battlefield etc. instead of just playing offline Unreal 3 or Half Life 2? Humans always act unpredictable. Its much more fun. And if you refer to PvP without Death Penalty, I do have the same opinion as already was stated: I do not like meaningless PvP.

As you may have already noticed, I LOVE Ultima Online. Let's take an example from UO: I remember farming Earth Elementals in the dungeon Shame, back in the days when my char was weak. I killed those things for hours, getting better and better in swordsmanship. I had a backpack full of gold and magic items. I knew it was time to get out of the dungeon and recall to Britain to bank this stuff. Suddenly a bunch of red guys came riding into the dungeon and saw me. I rode as hard as could, these murderers always on my back. Somehow I managed to get them off, and suceeded to hide a screen away. My heart was *BOOM BOOM BOOM*, Pulse about 200 I think. I recalled to Britain, banked that stuff, and was very very happy! 

On the other side, I do remember mining in UO; had a full backpack with valorite stones, a red guy pops up, boom I am dead. What I mined for hours - Gone. I sat in front of PC, sreaming and yelling. After I while I settled, my pulse went back to normal and I had to laugh:  I loved about a great game, which enables me to participate in all those emotions!

And exactly these emotions are the reason for me to not play games like WoW, War, etc. (I do have tested them for some months, but quickly bored me to death).

WoW repair system is the best. You don't have to constantly start over with full loot loss systems, you don't feel like your sliding back constantly with XP loss and it can still sting because if you aren't careful you'll run out of money fast.

Originally posted by Lansid

Originally posted by Astralglide

Originally posted by Pkmn_knight

Well I'd thought I'd ask people what their ideal Death Penalty in a mmorpg would be. I've made a small poll (like I do every thread) to show general options about it.  

But I want people to post what they think would be best. I hope I didn't leave any obvious one out of the poll

 

Mine would be either a Character deletion if the system was made so people can't just go arround killing everyone easily.
 

Or a Heaven system where's players go to a heavenly or Hell like place(depends on mechanics or lore religion or whatever) then there could be ways to be brought back to life. From a quest, to something like players having to gain ingredients for a body and resurrect soul.(Or for cash shop games, buy quick easy way out)

Well, I need to fully and totally disagree with character deletion. I put a lot of time into my toons and I would never play a game that threw away all that time and effort from a death.

Stat Loss: Maybe, but it needs to be either limited by time or fixable

Experience Loss: maybe

Money Loss: Lose 25-50% of your gold upon death? As long as there is a bank to store your cash.

Full Gear Loss: No-one's taking my epics, period.

Item Loss: Again, no

Heaven/ Hell: NOW HERE IS A GOOD IDEA! Pay attention Blizzard and Bioware: this is one of the more innovative ideas that I have heard recently. This not only adds a little more of a time sink to death (like the penalty in WoW, but also adds further quest and story options. In fact, having an MMO that operates on multiple planes is something that I would definately take a serious look at.

Hmmm... ok my version of Hell would be in order to get out, you need to navigate a 100x100 grid, with no ambient lighting, and there is a maze-like safe path that you need to navigate in order to get to the door on the other side. The catch is each time you try, the maze randomly changes, and 1/2 of the tiles are safe to walk on, the other half are insta-death which makes you re-navigate the maze, minus one full level of experience... and this grid must be navigated by crouching (because of the low ceiling).

My second idea would be to make getting out of Hell easy, all you need is a "key or pass" to exit the secured portal. In order to get said key or pass it is dropped in a random location in an open PvP area with full loot option. ALL PvP'ers go who die, (gankers/BG kind of people, ect) are thrown into one massive, singular zoned arena. ONE key spawns in the middle of this circle every HOUR on the hour. The diameter of this circular hell is a virtual 5 miles, and with each spawn the portal exit changes as well.

My thrid idea of hell would be to show some awesome CG sequence of lens flare glory... all the while in the background force the computer to uninstall their game, block all IP addys to every MMO game other than Everquest, have the computer install only EQ classic, and force the internet connection to operate at only 14.4 baud.

 

Or, it could send automated mail to a random friend in your RL address book telling that person why you died. Did you fall off a cliff? Did you die in PvP? If you die doing something Douchey, then it should send hatemail to your boss.

Originally posted by decoy26517

WoW repair system is the best. You don't have to constantly start over with full loot loss systems, you don't feel like your sliding back constantly with XP loss and it can still sting because if you aren't careful you'll run out of money fast.

I think that you should lose experience instead of having to repair while you are still leveling a toon. You should lose money (I do like the gear repair system in WoW too) only after reaching Max level, and itshould get more painful depending on how you die. I do like the fact that you don't lose gear durability during pvp

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Originally posted by Wizardry
There is no "ideal death penalty" it depends on the structure of the game.Obviously if  it takes 3 weeks to gain 1 level,then 1 death you lose a level,that is not going to fly.However if in that same game the reward for that fight that caused the death was so great,it may be worth the risk of a 3 week loss in playtime,then it could work.

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I agree with this. Full loot is OK in some games, but in others where you might spend the better part of the summer raiding or grinding to get a particular staff or sword, losing it within minutes because of lag or something would be ridiculous.

I do not like corpse run as a death penalty. Corpse run is essentially forced boredom as a penalty. I don't think you ever want the player to feel bored when playing the game, even as a punishment for failure.

A hit to $ and/or XP works fine. I don't think there's any reason to get any more creative than that for most MMO games.

I think the best choice isn't on there.

Let's get it out of the way first. MMOs are mainstream now, so harsh death penalties have gone the way of the dodo for anything that isn't an independent MMO. My suggestion is the system The Chronicles of Spellborn and Champions Online uses. Though, Champions Online does a very poor and almost negligible implementation of it. It's still a similar system, however.

With TCOS and CO, you have a separate experience system that builds up as you kill mobs. In TCOS, you gain Personal Experience Points ,(PeP) which can go up to level 5, gaining yourself considerable benefit from doing so such as large stat and status bonuses. However, it takes quite a bit of grinding to obtain those levels especially the closer to 5 you get. Once you die a few times and realize what you're missing without those levels, you can hardly stand playing the game anymore without those bonuses. Dying becomes a big hit as you lose an entire level of PeP. There is a considerable incentive to stay alive to maintain your PeP levels. Also, since the game had open House based PvP, you dearly wanted those PeP levels if any PvP encounters were to come your way. (Though you don't lose PeP from PvP deaths)

In Champions Online as I've said, the system is barely noticeable and most people don't even pay any attention to it. I believe it gives you something like 6.5% bonus healing and damage if you grind up 6 stars, which actually doesn't take much time at all.

Exp debt like in CoH. You don't actually lose exp, so will never risk losing a level ( like in EQ), but you must work off the debt before progressing further. My favorite. I think it is a deterrent without being too harsh.

Originally posted by Varny

I hate the corpse runs they were frustrating and not fun so why have them in?

The best Death Penalty I found was Star Wars Galaxies Pre CU.

Loved the Wounds when you died so you then needed to go to a Cantina to rest and Medical centre for a Doctor or needed to be a TKM. I loved the Battle Fatigue over time in combat so that you needed to go rest every once in awhile. I loved Decay which meant you had to create bonds with crafters or be a crafter yourself. It was just a very social death penalty and item decay was parma because while you could repair it, it wouldn't go back to the full condition so you did eventually have to go back to the crafter or make it yourself.

It didn't feel like a death penalty but just part of the game and it was so well made into the game where all the professions needed eachother unless they were broken lol. These were parts of the game I loved to play because it was so social and the whole server felt like one tight friendly community. So many nice people I remember and you just don't get that from games today, everyones off soloing because the game is flawed and doesn't allow easy grouping. You go into a WoW today and all you want to do is get to end level so you can PVP because it's so unbalanced through the levels. It's just no fun having to grind away to get to the fun part so everyone ignores eachother. SWG on the otherhand you just met people straight away and played with them without needed to grind away for a month,

Another thing I loved was Jedi Permadeath because it worked with an Alpha class and it was something unique and special the game had which no other game was doing. Most importantly you wern't forced onto the Jedi class and it was something that was meant to be special and you'd see once in a blue moon because of the timeline. However they ruined it all because the whiners complained about dying and well you get your Jedi slot after you die, you just lose all your stuff so whats to complain about?

 

Loved SWG mechanics, the game was buggy as hell and you just wish'd SOE would have polished it over the years but it wasn't to be and we'll never see another game like it which is a shame.

/agreed

Originally posted by decade85

Originally posted by Varny

I hate the corpse runs they were frustrating and not fun so why have them in?

The best Death Penalty I found was Star Wars Galaxies Pre CU.

Loved the Wounds when you died so you then needed to go to a Cantina to rest and Medical centre for a Doctor or needed to be a TKM. I loved the Battle Fatigue over time in combat so that you needed to go rest every once in awhile. I loved Decay which meant you had to create bonds with crafters or be a crafter yourself. It was just a very social death penalty and item decay was parma because while you could repair it, it wouldn't go back to the full condition so you did eventually have to go back to the crafter or make it yourself.

It didn't feel like a death penalty but just part of the game and it was so well made into the game where all the professions needed eachother unless they were broken lol. These were parts of the game I loved to play because it was so social and the whole server felt like one tight friendly community. So many nice people I remember and you just don't get that from games today, everyones off soloing because the game is flawed and doesn't allow easy grouping. You go into a WoW today and all you want to do is get to end level so you can PVP because it's so unbalanced through the levels. It's just no fun having to grind away to get to the fun part so everyone ignores eachother. SWG on the otherhand you just met people straight away and played with them without needed to grind away for a month,

Another thing I loved was Jedi Permadeath because it worked with an Alpha class and it was something unique and special the game had which no other game was doing. Most importantly you wern't forced onto the Jedi class and it was something that was meant to be special and you'd see once in a blue moon because of the timeline. However they ruined it all because the whiners complained about dying and well you get your Jedi slot after you die, you just lose all your stuff so whats to complain about?

 

Loved SWG mechanics, the game was buggy as hell and you just wish'd SOE would have polished it over the years but it wasn't to be and we'll never see another game like it which is a shame.

 

/agreed

Again, stuff like this would only reduce World PvP population, 1 death at a time. W-PvP is all about numbers. Larger the fight, the more epic it will become.

WoW has a timer system, to prevent players from exploiting body runs in W-PvP, which has worked very well. That system doesnt scare off potenial W-PvPers.

Interesting opinions.

The reason full item/gear droppers want it is because it presents risk and rewards, Situations that make you angry or running for life. Some people don't losing their hard earned work.. But then people can argue it's a game don't think to much into it as work.. then people say about it taking effort, time and hard work to gain stuff.

Thanks to the person who say the heaven/hell idea is a good idea. I also see Character deletion isn't liked at all, expected as much heh. 

So for a system to use Full loot drop for it to appeal to more. The game would need to have crafting/gear getting/professions that don't seem boring working at. And for the bosses/whatever who drop epic gear to not seem like a grind to get the gear. But then that would be making pve easier or so, wouldn't it? And make pvers not very happy?

Some people like the wow timesink/gear repair. It's good for wow due to it's instanced raids and zones. But lead to ways people can be camped, gold sink and so on.

A Save system is interesting but can be exploited.

Currently we see pve and pvp servers. That could work, if like runescape. But some people want small amounts of servers or even just one server entirely.
 

There could be a system which changes how much you drop based on if you kill/attack. From dropping nothing to being a genocidal murderer dropping it all if dead. It would bump up bounty hunting, but then people would say What's the point of pvping in the first place? 

There's exp loss/slowing one. Interesting, but what about end game? No risk for battling monsters/people at end game.

The idea about there being a extra exp meter making you stronger is interesting. It sounds good enough.

Next time I'm not gonna make a poll, just write obvious ones on the post and add if any brought up.

Originally posted by Kalvasflamm

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Kalvasflamm 

With "winning" I mean, that I can not play a game, where death has hardly no consequence. Why?  Because I could not get ANY thrill out of it. I love the idea, that whatever I do, there could always someone behind the next corner, kill me, and take all my things. "Winning" is the thrill I get out of game. Jesus, in UO I shit in my pants every time some red pops out, while I am hunting, fishing, Idocing, etc.

This is the real 'great divide' in this debate.  To someone like me what you described sounds weird and borders on a mental problem.   You seem unable to derive pleasure from basic game features without adding a masochistic element to it.  Rather than getting enjoyment from the challenge you enjoy the artificial fear that is generated.  It reminds me very much of the college kids who seem unable to have 'fun' without getting blind drunk.

 

 

Hmm, to be honest, I think the real problem is what you define as "challenge". It is no challenge for me doing some PvE-Stuff, Quests etc. There is nothing unpredictable in it. Same goes for raids. Although I do understand what some people "get" from this (achieving a "greater" goal with the guild for example), I really can not stand it. I am simply bored to death. I miss the "unpredictable"-factor that only comes from playing against other humans. I mean, why do people play games like Counterstrike, Battlefield etc. instead of just playing offline Unreal 3 or Half Life 2? Humans always act unpredictable. Its much more fun. And if you refer to PvP without Death Penalty, I do have the same opinion as already was stated: I do not like meaningless PvP.

The unpredictable nature of a PvP encounter only depends on the setting and the skill of the opossing player(s).  'Meaningless' PvP can be just as unpredictable as 'meaningful' PvP.  In fact I would argue that 'meaningless' PVP can be more unpredictable because the players are free to try out more unorthodox tactics.

Also Death Penalties by themselves are very predictable.  You die, you lose X amount of xp/gold/stuff. 

I measure the difficulty of the challenge by how difficult it is to accomplish and not by the penalties incurred for failure.  An easy challenge is just as easy when the panalty is permadeath and a hard challenge is just as hard when there are no penalties.

When I am faced with a challenge that I deem worthy I will put my heart and soul into it.  However, as soon as you start attaching penalties for failure,the challenge changes from 'accomplish the task' to 'do not get penalized'.  This diminishes the worth of the challenge and its 'awesome factor'.  ie I would like to go to the Moon because it is an awesome challenge and not because I might die on the way there.

The problem really lies in that there are so many functions that a death penalty is trying to serve.

It needs to be harsh enough to make you careful when venturing alone, but if it really sets you back then it reduces a sense of accomplishment.  Also, PvP related deaths give players the same reason to be careful, and sometimes provide a reward to the victorious player.  But at the same time, if a powerful player is killed and all their gear looted by someone else, that could be months of setback, and that just plain isn't fun.  Now, factor in a raid group that wants to attempt a new boss.  If there's a severe death penalty, will they only get one attempt per day?  Will they have to go and quest for two hours in order to regain the xp they've lost?  There are so many factors to consider...