Recently talked about this in another thread on a different board. I loved the death penalties of older games because it forced people to play smarter. If you didn't want to back-track and repeat the same thing you just did for the past 2 hours, you would change tactics until you learned how to move ahead. Games now are much more brute force. You can just keep bashing your head against it until the game itself changes, not you. This has encouraged people to not learn how to be good players. What's the point? It's not like you're punished for being awful in a lot of games now.

However, I think (As a means to make people think) we have moved past it. Death penalties like that are no longer acceptable in current MMOs. Let's face it, the EQ and UO generation is older now with much less time on our hands. Neither that generation or the current one would stand for such a punishment/time-sink. I don't think the idea of forcing more intelligent play should be abondoned either though. Devs just have to use the game content itself to actually force players to think to progress, instead of punishing them for failing.

Originally posted by zethcarn

By that I mean when your character dies it is unplayable (or recieves -75% stat reduction) for X amount of time.   Each time you die the debuff timer gets a little longer until you can go 1 month or so without dying, then the debuff timer is reset.   I think it would make players think before they act and it would definetely add a greater sense of danger.

 

 

No, sorry, I do not think such a mechanic can make a game fun.

I do not mind Open PvP, I do not mind Full Loss either provided it exists within a good supportive environment from the rest of the systems in the game.

But to have debuffs on stats or render the character unplayable...no this is not fun...the Idea here is to have fun first and foremost not engage in a Survival to the death Hunger Game...

Permanent Death works in games that have matches, arena or  battlefields...like WoT or WWII Online/Planetside etc... but would not be fun in an MMO with an RPG with any longer term focus imo.

i think the only way to do a hardcore death penalty is to use a tiered approach.

you have one master character that cannot be killed (immortal) and that character has a number of "Champions" which can be killed, but play just like regular characters. Your immortal character could have limited powers to bring back these "champions", and while one champion is down for the count, so to speak, another champion would fill his place.

Nope, not even remotely interested. You know why? It isn't fun (to me). Death penalties aren't fun, they simply keep you from getting back to having fun when you want to. That being said, I'd definitely support someone bringing about a game with such a system simply because there are plenty of people that would want something like that and my opinion, regardless of my personal take on it, isn't good enough to dictate how other people should play.

So no, wouldn't play it, but would wish it luck and cheer from the sidelines.

I have always wonders why some games dont have a 3 life system, die 3 times and you're done, that way we get some flexability ans still have the 'well this is it' feeling should you get down to 1 life

Originally posted by rungard

i think the only way to do a hardcore death penalty is to use a tiered approach.

you have one master character that cannot be killed (immortal) and that character has a number of "Champions" which can be killed, but play just like regular characters. Your immortal character could have limited powers to bring back these "champions", and while one champion is down for the count, so to speak, another champion would fill his place.

No, even in this situation, people would complain.

Some guys that complain here,don't liked to die PERIOD.

No permadeath or semi-pemadeath idea would make them happy, no matter how the gameplay is.

The only type of semi-pemadeath that would make those players happy is something like this:

Players start in a universe or multiverse, when your character die this guy will spawn in another universe/multiverse, this universe/multiverse is 100% like the other one (not like felluca and tramel in ultima online that are almost similar but not trully similar) but here when your char dies he will spawn in the same universe he is.

This is the only way to put semi-permadeath in the game, in a way that permadeath haters would not complain.

But this idea doenst change too much the game, because players can just die quickly and go to other world, to not need to care about this "permadeath".

In fact even with this idea some would complain if:

A)The game had full loot, I mean, many permadeath haters are also full loot haters. But what I am saying is, the permadeath haters would complain about having to lose their items to go to no-permadeath world.

B)Some players would not read about the game, would not know that the game has this semi-permadeath feature and would start to play it, and when they die would start to ask why they can find the players, monsters,... they were battilng before.. or if they were building something (if the game allows it) why they aren't finding their stuff.

Originally posted by xDayx
Anything is better than what AAA's do now. Thats like asking someone stranded in the desert if they want only 1 sip of water. Of course they do. The entitlement mentality has definitely bled into the younger mmo generation though I'm afraid.

It's an entertainment product, so of course people are going to act entitled towards it.  Because they can.  If you make a crappy game, there are thousands of other games people can play instead.  They're going to make their entitlement-sounding statements and leave.

And the company making the poor entertainment product is going to go out of business.

Meanwhile until you can come up with a reason for hardcore death actually being a compelling or creating deep gameplay, it remains a poorly-justified idea.

Permadeath style mechanics only work in game with very short progression cycles like Nethack, or in games with no progression at all (but at that point it's not really permadeath)

Why would I pay money for non-life like entertainment that will punish me by not allowing me to play, thus not entertaine,  for the sake of realism?!?

FANTASY games should not try to be REAL.

If there was anything realistic I would want in my magic/sword swinging, sci-fi/future games with races that arent real based on some other planet it would be bouncing boobies...not realistic death.

I said boobies...lol.

Seriously though, I buy a game to play it. Perma death or massive penalties keeps me from doing that and its more of a punishment for playing the game forcing you to play ultra ultra careful which draws from the entire game. The idea of risk = reward is as bad as time = reward in MMORPGs.

How about fun = reward instead?

Yeah, a game based on fun....you do something cause its fun, not because of what you get at the end of doing it.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by xDayx
Anything is better than what AAA's do now. Thats like asking someone stranded in the desert if they want only 1 sip of water. Of course they do. The entitlement mentality has definitely bled into the younger mmo generation though I'm afraid.

It's an entertainment product, so of course people are going to act entitled towards it.  Because they can.  If you make a crappy game, there are thousands of other games people can play instead.  They're going to make their entitlement-sounding statements and leave.

And the company making the poor entertainment product is going to go out of business.

Meanwhile until you can come up with a reason for hardcore death actually being a compelling or creating deep gameplay, it remains a poorly-justified idea.

Permadeath style mechanics only work in game with very short progression cycles like Nethack, or in games with no progression at all (but at that point it's not really permadeath)

I agree with you on games that have a considerable time investment should not have hardcore death penalties unless the penalties imposed on the player that caused someone elses death and loss of said considerable amount of time also are there, i.e. you chose to murder someone then by all means you should be hunted, tried, judged and hung, receiving the same hardcore death upon completion as you dealt out.

Having such high penalties for such a long time would be worse than permadeath.

Originally posted by L0C0Man

If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have probably liked the idea. As it is right now, I wouldn't play it at all. My gaming time is more limited because of work, family and going back to college, so I wouldn't want it to find myself in a position where I have some free time but can't play because of the death penalty. Also, I lost count the number of times I've died in an MMO because I'm playing late at night, and have to leave it there in the middle of a fight and run to the other room because the baby woke up crying.

I agree with this mostly. I voted Maybe, if the time X wasn't too long. That suggestion of having to not die for a month to have your stats restored sounds way too bloody long. And if it was open PvP it would be an absolute necessity to have something akin to Eve Online's system security status and CONCORD police; if some upper level character or group of characters go on a gank-fest in the beginner zones plus some other safe zones, they should be killed by security guards and have the same, if not harsher, stat penalty.

Otherwise, the game will be dead within a week of launch.

if there was a compelling reason for it, i could deal with permadeath....

as an example, say there was a specific zone in the game that if you die in, you have permadeath. this zone is open to anyone, any race, any level, any faction

contained within this zone are several items of almost incalculable power, a trinket granting near unlimited wealth, a weapon that can kill any normal monster in one hit, a means to have your own kingdom where you can make or set the rules, whatever it is, something that is so overwhelmingly powerful that you can only have 1 of these items ever created on that server, and each character is limited to only possessing one of these items...

you progress not even really with combat, although the combat is scales to whatever level you are, but also clues, puzzles, investigations etc....

in a scenario like this.... i would take my chances

I'd like a game with penalties like EQ had - corpse run, exp reduction and ultimately corpse decay with losing all items. Corpse runs were actually mini games as it involved a lot of dying sometimes :)

I voted no, mostly because I tend to get pissed when I die in even a mild death penalty environment.  Also I've observed that I tend to play classes that have high survivability, and actively avoid playing low survivability classes, at least when I'm playing solo.  (for group play, I don't mind squishy characters)

If I do something stupid, then I deserve the death.  If I get unlucky for example by walking into a room that has random spawn high levels, then I deserve the death.  I'm okay with these.  I don't want a game where it is impossible to die.

However, if having a character death means not getting what I was after (booted from a dungeon for example), that is punishment in its own.  Adding more punishment on top of that is like adding injury to insult.

Of course some love a strong death penalty, I'm just not one of them.

Thread title says " semi hard" in it.

I approve this thread.

I never find it enjoiable to die in games.Why make it worse than it allredy is.

Originally posted by zethcarn

By that I mean when your character dies it is unplayable (or recieves -75% stat reduction) for X amount of time.   Each time you die the debuff timer gets a little longer until you can go 1 month or so without dying, then the debuff timer is reset.   I think it would make players think before they act and it would definetely add a greater sense of danger.

 

 

Ha, I was just mentioning this system in the perma-death thread without having even read this thread.  But I totally agree, this is exactly what I would like to try.

Though your numbers are a bit steaper than I was thinking, and I was thinking just unplayable, I don't see much point in 75% stat reduction.

If a character dies IMO, they should be completely unplayable.

I responded to another thread about perma-death in MMOs with this:

"Remember that anyone who wishes something of this sort already has the option to delete a character if he dies (Ive played though games in this manner and it does add a certain level of excitement).

In general, since someone desiring a perma-death option for their own characters already has this option in every MMO that has ever been created (as far as I know none of them deny you the ability to delete a character), what proponents of perma-death systems in MMOs are really arguing for is the ability to impose it on others who do not desire it. Again, if both you and your opponent want perrma-death, you can have it in any game you play. The only situation where you cannot have perma-death in most MMOs is when the other player doesn't want it.

Why do proponents of perma-death systems feel that they should be able to decide for another player whether or not his character should be deleted ?"

Originally posted by Ashen_X

I responded to another thread about perma-death in MMOs with this:

 

"Remember that anyone who wishes something of this sort already has the option to delete a character if he dies (Ive played though games in this manner and it does add a certain level of excitement).

 

In general, since someone desiring a perma-death option for their own characters already has this option in every MMO that has ever been created (as far as I know none of them deny you the ability to delete a character), what proponents of perma-death systems in MMOs are really arguing for is the ability to impose it on others who do not desire it. Again, if both you and your opponent want perrma-death, you can have it in any game you play. The only situation where you cannot have perma-death in most MMOs is when the other player doesn't want it.

Why do proponents of perma-death systems feel that they should be able to decide for another player whether or not his character should be deleted ?"

No one is imposing permadeath on other players, games with permadeath would be made to players that like permadeath, not to non permadeath players. There are many other mmorpgs you can play out there.

Permadeath is like this type of music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3pHxQc2YkU

Its wierd and not for everyone (PS: I dont like it), but this was not made for everyone, and you dont need to listen it, if you dont like, no one is blasting it in your face, and the amount of guys doing it is pretty small if you compare with all other types of music, so no other music type will be destryoed (by the lack of musicians doing it) because they are doing this type only.

Also permadeath influence the gameplay, alot like many other mmorpg features.